The first week we went away to Brugge, Belgium as a family of four. My hubby and I had been to Brugge before as a couple, and a vacation with kids is definitely different, which I could have told everyone about it after the experiences I'd with Julian when he was little.
Basically a vacation is best described as time away from a job and frustrations of day-to-day life, with the goal of relaxing and having fun. I would call ours as a trip, a journey to a place. As long as you don't get confused with a vacation, then you won't get unexpected feelings of regret and disappointments, which typically would be taken out on the spouse.
We chose Brugge due to its 2-3 hours drive limit as we could get into the car and drive off just before Sami's nap. With Sami taking her nap mostly during that drive, it gave us all peace. We picked a house to rent via Airbnb, simply because you get somewhat more space/ value than going to those family parks. For some reason, I can't sleep in the same room well with my kids, only if I have to. So we always make sure we have separate rooms for the kids and for ourselves. This time we even had 4 bedrooms. One thing though, as the house isn't meant for baby/ toddler vacation, so we did have to watch out for our little one where she plugged her fingers in. However, we did get a house big enough for her to crawl almost endlessly, plus the owner has kids so both kids of ours had enough toys to play with, even on a rainy day.
This was our second family vacation with Sami, and this time with it not being in family vacation park, she spent quite some time in the stroller sleeping. Our schedule was relatively well-organized, as we would head out after her fruity break plus our family breakfast. She may doze off and wake up just before lunch break. We had done mostly activities that were great for the kids or more for Julian, since Sami is still too young. We went to a local swimming pool as we got discount tickets, plus a local circus event where you don't see many tourists. Sometimes when we didn't know where to go in the city, finding a big bookstore to go to is also good. Often in those big bookstores, you can find a children's section is fun for the kids.
We normally ate out for our lunch, and for dinner, I cooked or got take outs to warm up in the house. It was just better without having to worry about whether the restaurants have children's seats for us or our toddler having her tantrum during dinner time. I packed safety belts for the children's seat, simply because often they don't have those in the seats they have. Eating in the house allowed us to let Sami cruise around once she was done with her meal. Also, with the mess she makes these days while exploring her meal, it's just easier to be "home".
I think I did pretty well with packing this time for a week away seeing what I did bring along, plus the fact that I didn't forget her reflux medicine like I did on our first family vacation. Besides the obvious baby phones, a bath mat for example, I find it handy to have Sami's cutlery along, since when eating out, restaurants don't always have plastic plates for kids, let alone the big forks and knives. I brought a pair of scissors too to cut food small enough for her to eat. Most people often look at me all surprised, but I think these are little things that make my life just a touch easier when being out with a toddler.
When people asked me how our vacation was, I would say we survived. Being on vacation with kids doesn't take out the occurances of their throwing tantrums on the street, in the supermarket, or in the restaurants. Yet, I often think we should be more relaxed about these, as they are on vacation too.
I will be honest and say that my parenting skills are different from my hubby, and with my son being my hubby's stepson, and my hubby coming from a different upbringing environment, often we get into discussions. So this also happened during the vacation.
But at the end of the day, seeing my kids enjoyed their vacations, plus my hubby not having killed me or so, I think this was a good vacation!
The 2nd week we spent time more on ourselves, when my son went to China alone for the first time to see his own father who moved there recently. It was hard for me to let go of my little boy for the first time being so far away from me. I had a harder time to let go than him having to say goodbye to me. I worried sick, but we all survived too! Julian enjoyed his time in China, so did his father. Julian had a great time on both flights and was well taken care of. He got to go sit in the business class for some hours to enjoy the massage seat, plus playing with their entertainment systems. He helped the crew members with serving drinks and got to sleep a few hours in the lounge of the crew member team. He did say if having to choose among Xiamen (where his father is now located), Shenzhen (a city close to Hong Kong), and Hong Kong, he likes Hong Kong much more as it's more civilized there.
During this 2nd week, we got to be as a couple again with Sami being at daycare. Some people may wonder why we left her there during our vacation. With Sami not being a good sleeper, we never have had a babysitter or anyone coming to our house to watch her for us to go out for dinner or a night out as a couple. So this was the only chance we had to spend some time together. We did some shopping as well as having lunch together without rushing. That was nice!
Then during our 3rd week, we decided to start our house-hunting journey, which all went fairly quick. We found our dream house within a couple days, and made our offer on it. Others may not understand why we made our decisions so soon unless they understand the current house market here, as well as the interest rates on mortgage plus changes in the tax benefits.
Definitely our vacation has brought quite some new perspectives for us to look forward to in the coming period to come.
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