Holidaying with kids can sometimes sound like an impossibility but a friend of mine recently wrote a beautiful post reflecting on their latest attempt.
It’s our final night in New Zealand and it’s got me thinking about things.
My parents took me to NZ when I was a kid and I thought it was pretty great. Dad and Mum spent ages planning it and making some great memories for us and I remember always thinking how much fun our folks must have had. I then remember watching some movies of the trip in my 20s and thinking how it was great for us as kids but how lame it must have been for an early 30s couple to be tied down with kids having to look at cows and other lame stuff.
Now I’ve put together an itinerary to try to give Max (and Alice for whatever that’s worth for a 10 month old) a great experience and I expected to lament not being able to do the adventure stuff. The fancy restaurants. The cultural stuff. The getting smashed on a wine tour. There would be sacrifices but we’d try.
Tonight we hoped to go to the Ortega Fish Shack… The #1 ranked restaurant on Trip Advisor with amazing $40 mains that just happens to be on the same street as our hotel. But the kids didn’t have their day sleep and we’re getting ratty and they only had small tables for 2 left so we said goodbye to that in exchange for pizza in the motel.
As we sat feasting on pizza and sav blanc from the supermarket, we were laughing and joking sharing stories of what we’d seen over the past week and having the time of our lives just being together. I now know that Mum and Dad DID have a fabulous time on that trip to NZ when I was a kid. Not because they thought milking cows was awesome or that they didn’t really WANT to be on a wine tour… But I now understand that watching your kids have the time of THEIR lives and your family being together and growing together simply couldn’t be bettered by anything else.
This really HAS been the most fantastic week for me and it’s because of the pizza, not in spite of it.
SG
What do you think? How do you approach balancing your holidays ….
