Simple advice for planning an ankle-biter's vacation...

It has been AGES since I last blogged.  Holidays and then school and then more holidays...time just ticks by so quickly.

Waiting at Abu Dhabi  Airport.

That's the one thing that you can guarantee over here - that each holiday will just come at the right time to recharge the batteries and make living here worthwhile.  Well, kinda.

Our summer holiday was pretty much researched, booked and paid for whilst I sat at my desk at school waiting for the school year to end.  It is hard for those back in the antipodes to get their heads around I know...but we end our school year here in July and begin a new school year in September.  When I returned from vacation and got back into school people greeted me with "Hope you have a good new year".  Strange.  It just didn't feel right.

The streets of Spain

The girls (teachers) at my school joked ad nauseum about my attention to detail and fixated passion for finding the best deal having weighed up all possibilities for flights, accommodation, travel, rental car companies...well, the list was exhaustive.  While they played card games and had a glorious time poking fun at my expense, I was head down, bum up sorting through mounds of paper and internet sites.

Fun at the beach in Mallorca 

In doing so, I realised a few things.  Firstly, that planning a holiday for two people is vastly different to planning one for four people; two of whom can be unpredictable ankle-biters who have vastly different interests, priorities and staying power than their middle-aged counterparts.  Indeed, you can't just hop on a plane, somehow make your way to a hotel, grab a bite along the way, leave what you do in the day up to chance or flights of fancy and then head home late in the night after a fun-filled day.

Oh no, the ankle-biters require consideration such as no layovers, favourable flight times, food-stores aplenty, entertainment and SLEEP times factored into the equation.  They require accommodation that includes children's toys and somewhere to run around; maybe even a park nearby.  They require car seats for driving to places, the occasional sea swim and to dig around in the sand.  They require somewhere that will serve a 'happy meal' rather than escargot, and the occasional ice-cream as a bribe for promised good behaviour before going to a museum or after visiting a cathedral.  These ankle-biters also require a variety of transportation modes (just to keep the excitement levels high); the plane, the train, the bus, the horse and cart, the canal boat - all of which need to accommodate a toddler's pram.

Guemene Penfao, Loire Valley

When you're travelling with ankle-biters you also need to have the 'next-day' plan already firmly in mind.    You can't just wing it.  Mixing the stuff you want to do in with the stuff they want to do is a no-brainer and an absolute necessity.  This of course also helps with the continued bribing that occurs in order for the holiday to run smoothly.   On our vacation many an ice-cream and trip to the beach or ride on the train was to be had in exchange for an hour in a castle, cathedral or museum!  If there's nothing to threaten withdrawing then you're in trouble. BIG trouble.

Chateaubriant

And the trouble doesn't just end there.  When the inevitable happens and the nuclear tantrum arrives you have to have the plan already in place for what to do.  We got caught out on a couple of occasions with the smallest of the ankle-biters.  Solution: find someone in a uniform (irrespective of what kind) who looks like they might be a tad scary from a small one's perspective.  Tell the small one that this lady/man is in charge of the time-out room (find the nearest room with a door) and that naughty children are put in that time out room.  Works a treat.  But we've probably scarred him for life.

The other options for miscreant behaviour include the threat of "I'll put you on the roof" as you're driving along in the rental car, or "we'll drop you on the side of the road and you'll have to walk home".  There are of course problems with the aforementioned consequences for bad behaviour. The small one's sister is in favour of both "Yes! Let's put him on the roof!" and you know that you can never follow through on either threat and just hope you're never called on it.

And, when did I start talking like my own mother?

Amsterdam

And when the small one had a nuclear tantrum whilst embarking the train to Amsterdam, throwing him into daddy's arms seemed to do the trick and the mostly-women passengers did the communal "ooooh" with references to that "sweet boy".  All this combined with wet, long eyelashes and cuddles for dad endeared us to passengers who could well have turned on us during the 3 hour train ride.  Phew.

There are of course advantages of travelling with ankle-biters though.  Their fares for just about everything are half-price, and the small one got in free everywhere we went.  When waiting in a long line to visit the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam we were pulled out of the line and ushered to the front and saved a 1 hour or so wait.  When we boarded airplanes we were invited to board first.  When purchasing train and tram tickets in France and Amsterdam we were told both ankle-biters were free irrespective of the fact the bigger of the two should have been charged.

When we boarded a plane to Paris our flight seats were all over the place.  Knowing we couldn't possibly sit the small one on his own a lovely male passenger offered up his seat for me.  Not only was this an advantage for keeping the small one quiet and settled, but afforded me the opportunity to chat with a lovely NZ woman (the lovely man's wife) who resided in the seat next to me.  Funny huh?  Fly half-way around the world, change seats on a plane, and the lovely couple are Kiwis.  Truly flying the flag you guys...thanks.

So the planning paid off.  Big time.  But our vacation wasn't just great because we got to see 4 European countries; beaches of Mallorca, Louvre, Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Versailles, Bruge, Van Gogh Museum, Anne Frank's house...to name-drop a few cool places.  No, it was the best vacation because we got to share it with our darling little ankle-biters.  Their faces lit up when they saw things they loved; the local playground in Paris, Porto-Cristo beach in Mallorca, the horse and cart in Ghent, the playground at the gite in Loire Valley, the toy-box in the house in Ghent, Erasmuspark in Amsterdam and the pigeons running around underneath the Eiffel Tower.

The joy on the faces of our little ones when they ran around each house/apartment we stayed in and discovered new and different rooms ("Look mama, there's a balcony", "Look mama we have our own bathroom") was awesome.  They were impressed by the simple things.  In fact, when asked what was the best place we had been to, Lily answered, "The house in Loire Valley with the playhouse."  Even the Eiffel Tower could not compete.

In the village of Geumene Penfao

Our kids were great to travel with.  They have created a travel wall at home and often talk about places they've been to. There's no price that can be put on the experiences they have had already.  How many 3 and 4 year olds can talk about the little playhouse in a garden they stayed at in France?  They will have memories in video, in photos and in their little minds of our travels.  But most of all, we will have delicious memories of them and their utter joy at beholding some of the world's most beautiful places.

And that of course is priceless.