When Your Vacation Becomes a Trip

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Do you remember the time when you were married (or single, or dating) and you were so excited for your vacation? You packed a few suitcases, booked your travel, and looked forward to getting away from the hustle and bustle of every day life. You daydreamed of great meals, sleeping in, and roaming around doing whatever you felt like? Ah, lets reminisce of what a vacation was like BEFORE children. If you have vacationed with your kids you know that its not a vacation at all; its a trip.

Sleeping in has turned into even earlier wake up calls from very excited children. A few suitcases have turned into more luggage than you can fit in your car. Great meals have turned into eating at the spur of the moment whenever you feel a meltdown might be imminent. Roaming around has turned into planned daily activities that usually revolve around amusement parks, splash pads and wave pools. Let’s not even discuss how much equipment you need just for a few hours at the beach.

If your younger childless self was able to look at what your “vacations” are now it would probably induce nightmare-filled sleepless nights. Trips with children can be exhausting and daunting. However, the fun part about them is that you get to experience the trip through your childrens’ eyes. All the things your childless self would consider boring and mundane are brand new and amazing to your children. We all know that when you become a mother it is no longer about you, its about your kids. A “vacation” is no different. It’s not all about what you want to do and enjoy. It’s majorly about what your kids want to do and enjoy. I find though that the more I see my kids enjoying themselves, the more I enjoy myself.

We recently took a family trip to Hershey Park. My husband and I had a disastrous experience when we first took our daughter to Hershey. So to say we were apprehensive about going back would be an understatement. Thankfully we were proved very wrong. We watched our 7 year old daughter experience thrill rides for the first time (much to my detriment) and saw our 2 year old son’s amazement with the park and the monorail cars. What childless person do you know can say that on their vacation they witnessed pure joy in a child?

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I’m not the daredevil my daughter is!

We also realized that just because we were away with our kids at a kid-centered place it didn’t mean we as adults didn’t enjoy ourselves (we were even able to sneak in some childless vacation goals into our trip). My family had dinners at nicer restaurants at the hotel. We took the kids to see how chocolate was made and we all made our own candy bars (that will NEVER be too childish for me!). Since we booked in advance we were able to get an adjoining room for the kids so that didn’t mean a 9pm bedtime for my husband and me. We were able to have some wine and enjoy the view from our balcony after the kids went to sleep.

While the trips are exhausting I find them to be much more rewarding. To have time with your entire family and experience the laughter (and sometimes tears) of your children all while creating memories that will hopefully last a lifetime beats any fancy restaurant or 12 hour night sleep (oh that’s still a nice thought!).

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Well at least some of us get to sleep!

What are your thoughts about vacations vs. trips?

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