Holiday with kids - Georgy:)

Holiday - can you call it that when you have young kids? It is certainly not like the relaxing holidays we used to have where we could sit on a beach for ages and read, take an hour to drink a coffee somewhere like on the Grand Canal in Venice or wander slowly through the British museum or Louvre, or even go on a four day hike somewhere like Deep Creek in South Australia - all things I did prior to kids.

I remember a couple of years ago when I said I was going on holiday to New Zealand (at the time my little girl was 20 months) and a friend said how can you call it that, when you don't get a holiday from continually looking after a little person - true but actually for me it was a great holiday - for one a break from work and secondly I loved seeing my little girls wonderment at everything we saw. It made it just that more special.

On the weekend just gone we went to Bright in Victoria - relaxing, to a certain degree, being surrounded by nature but at the same time exhausting as neither child slept that well, especially my little boy being stuck in an awful travel cot. My little boy also is at that age where he is into everything and was running off all the time, trying to get in the river with the ducks or run down hills which his little legs aren't quite ready for. Good exercise for me chasing him.

They had a great time though (and so did I), going for small walks along the river, visiting Mount Buffalo and paddling in the Lake there, swimming in the pool at the place we were staying at and just having lots of time with their Mummy and Daddy. It is amazing how over a few days my daughter just became obviously more relaxed and was revelling in being outdoors just about all day. She even said on our last morning, "I don't want to go home Mummy" and I too thought neither do I. It was great to see, as over Christmas we went on a longer holiday to Adelaide, which means rushing around visiting family and friends and then back via the Grampians. After a while my daughter a couple of times a day asked when we were going home and my son became more and more clingy and tired, resulting in my husband and I being exhausted and then sick.

So I have come to realise that holidays with children can be just that if you choose the destination wisely and the amount of time you go for, be prepared to not rush from one thing to another or spend too many hours in a row in the car and in my case realise that another trip to Europe might just have to wait for another few years.