16 Days Away

Europe was taken by storm this month- 3 generations through Germany, Austria and Italy. Planes, trains and buses. Beer, wine and liquers. Sausages, pasta and tiramisu. We all had an incredible time, so many unique experiences and places, and a lot of quality time. Our 2 year old son Kit, travelled extremely well, which only made the already great trip even better.

A lot of people question bringing a young kid on such a complicated trip, and of course this answer will be different for every person. Some will decide a holiday without kids is more what they are looking for, and others may go the way we did in thinking, he may not remember the details of the trip, but he will have noticed the time spent with us, and we can show him pictures later to prove to him he had fun haha. And he really did- he loved being able to ride on the buses and trains and surprisingly loved castles and artwork and statues. At his age- as long as he thought there might be a dragon in the castle or he got to ride a cool thing on wheels, or see a cool thing on wheels he was happy. I always had snacks, a small bag with little tiny animals, and a binder full of stickers and colouring pages. The other good decision we made was to only bring a lightweight fold up stroller- you know those ones that cost $30. He is too busy and doesn't know well enough to not be contained in some fashion, especially in such busy touristy places. It battled those cobblestone streets and where there weren't elevators or accessible ramps (because it's Europe) we were able to even just pick up the entire thing with Kit in it and carry him up or down. Kit also mastered the on-the-go nap before we left on the trip- so we were ahead of the game on that one and made our days easy to be out and about. We did however, make more of an effort to have early nights so he had "normalsih" bedtimes. I found this perfect, even for us, as it gave us time to relax and unwind at the end of our full days of exploring and me time to journal. There was one night Chris and I did go out for a date night- the added bonus of travelling with the Grandparents! Here is an excerpt from that day in our travels, as it was a huge highlight for me.

"Another chilly day today with wind and no sun. We still made the best of it though! A lot of walking before our late lunch being able to see the beach at Lido, running in the sand and up and down the sand dunes and picking out cool seashells. Then more walking around the Gairdini area where we found a fun park and soccer field for Kit to play. The soccer was the highlight for him today for sure, even though we didn't have a ball, only a pinecone! This was also a really special moment for Chris he said. Our go-to lunch spot, the Rialto Restaurante did not disappoint nor our dinner spot for our date night- lasagna for lunch and ravioli for supper! We also tried a Spritz to drink- basically a punch- and tiramisu for dessert. YUM! Breakfast today though, I think was the best meal.We ate at the Florian which is the longest standing cafe to have never been closed since 1720. Another very posh/proper place we felt a bit out of place. But the food and service was impeccable- literally served on a silver platter. The gondola ride was surprisingly a worth while 30 minutes today. I wasn't sure if it was worth doing since we had already rode up and down the entire canal, but it was. We got to see along the smaller canals, Kit had a blast, we were told more history by our driver and were totally impressed with his driving skills of all of the gondola. The last part of our day was a little date night for Chris and I. So nice. The meal and the casino were of course tasty and super cool (the casino was the one from the James Bond movie with Daniel Craig- Casino Royale). But the real great part about the whole thing was just talking and hanging out with my best friend. Not worrying about Kit (schedule, food, keeping him occupied and happy). Not worrying about coordinating with everyone else, or making sure we were doing something everyone was ok with. Just him and me. He can get on my nerves, and me on his I'm sure lol but he's my favourite person to do anything with, talk about anything with and I am very thankful we got that time tonight. One of the highlights for me from this 16 day adventure for sure."

Journaling felt like a nice addition to this trip for me. With the earlier evenings, it was a relaxing way to end each of the days and really reflect on how the day went and things that really jumped out at me. Maybe I will never read it again, and maybe no one else besides me (and you who read this post) will read any of it, but if I don't put anything out there into the world, there is no chance of anyone remembering. So I will keep it on my book shelf with my other travel books and it will one day be given to Kit after I'm gone. And after that he will hopefully read it before throwing it away- so he can read all the fun things he got to do when he was 2- more than some who are 100.

Now onto December projects and everything Christmas- my favourite time of year!