Holidays with Children

Today’s Mantra: I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead

I’ve just come back from the least relaxing holiday ever. We went down south with two other couples, very good friends of ours. Together we had seven kids.

The first night we lost a couple and one child. Poor little Ike came down with a croup-like cough, so they went off to the hospital and then came back to pack, not wanting to spread the sickness amongst the other kiddies.

Their older daughter stayed with us and helped herd the five boys around, who followed her around like the Pied Piper. We’d hired a house and it had a great front and backyard, bonus that we could see both from the comfort of the living room. Problem was there was always something to do, make kids lunch, put baby down, clean up the kitchen before the next meal, put on a load of washing because of wee accident…and that was without even leaving the house.

Wintry temperatures didn’t help. Our hope of a beach holiday were dashed as we rugged up the kids and let them run around outside…but not at the seaside. Taking them out was a mission and we discovered at the first breakfast that if it wasn’t kid friendly, we weren’t meant to be there. As we made our hasty exit out of the restaurant after sweeping, wiping down furniture and hoping to god that buddah doorstop had already lost its head… we decided that we could only stomach one outing a day with all the monkeys.

A trip to the Maze and then the animal farm proved more successful. We all felt like big kids as we ran around the maze, trying to beat each other and be the first to take the photo at any of the many towers. The animal farm had an indoor play centre and bouncy castles.

We tried and failed to do most of our friends holiday traditions like Singstar, staying up late and putting kids all in bed by 7pm. Maybe next time?

Getting there and getting back was a total mission with all the stuff we had to pack, we have a big car…but we need more space!

It wasn’t relaxing but it was fun. Totally worth it to see all their little faces light up at the new adventures we’d planned for them and just the pure joy kids have at being amongst each other.