This past weekend my husband and I took the kids to Nantucket. We had the most beautiful September weather and I highly recommend going there in the fall as it’s still busy enough but not nearly as crowded as it is in the summer months.
We had originally planned on going in August for the my 40th birthday but couldn’t get away so we moved the trip to September. Every year we go to Cape Cod or Florida with my husband’s family or go to Maine with all of my family. There has also been the few occasions when my husband and I went away without kids or brought a sitter with us but the whole purpose of this trip was for it to just be the four of us. Joey is now 6, Caroline is now 4 so we thought it was time to have a good ole fashion family vacation.
I remember my parents used to take my brother and I everywhere with them. We didn’t fly, we drove. We drove to Disney, cross country and if we could have driven to Europe, my father would have. I have one memory of driving to Colorado in my father’s caprice classic and my brother and I fought so much in the back seat, my mom had to get in the back and my brother had to move to the front. Right after my mom was sitting in the back with me, I got car sick and threw up all over her and the back seat. We eventually got to Colorado only to go camping during a severe thunderstorm and my brother kept passing out from the high altitude.
This is what parents do though. It’s like giving birth. You forget how tiring, how much work and how painful it is to go away with kids. You only remember all the good parts so that is why I came up with the great idea for only the four of us to go away. I can say it was a good weekend but my kids fought, my husband who isn’t around them a lot was about to blow a casket from the fighting, nobody slept through the night (besides my husband) and by the end of it, both kids were exhausted and crying and my husband was saying we were never going away again. At one point a car full of parents drove by us on the sidewalk and yelled “we are on a kid’s free weekend” and all I could say back was “take me with you”!
When we got home last night and everyone got into bed, I started thinking to myself how lucky we are to have parents that go away with us. How we can escape for dinner, get a run in while everyone is eating breakfast, maybe even sleep or take a shower without anyone banging down the door. So next time I decide to go away with just the four of us, I will remember this. Or maybe I won’t because I’ve already forgotten and planning the next family trip.
