The verdict on vacation

Soaking up the sun

I'm totally rewarding myself with a blog post right now. After about three to four solid hours of working on our taxes, I'm doing something that I actually want to do and is easy for my brain to process. The funny thing is, we don't even do our own taxes, but the sheer volume of information needed to complete two international (one US, one Swiss) tax returns is crazy. Also, I told BK I was going to fire my admin because she is way behind on her filing (obviously I'm referring to myself on this one).

So, what's the verdict on vacationing? The verdict is still out, to be completely honest with you. Our trip to to the Canary Islands was good, but not our best vacation/trip/destination by any stretch of the imagination. It wasn't bad by any means, but we came back feeling kind of "meh" about the whole thing. It was okay.

Don't be disappointed for us or anything, as obviously there are far worse problems to have in life, but I think a number of factors contributed to us feeling this way. BK ended the trip by letting me know that he is, "out on traveling with toddlers." I'm hoping what he actually means is that he is out on trying to take a relaxing vacation with toddlers.

I'm still up for taking Baby K on city and mountain trips with us, just not on ones where BK and I are trying to relax, because she's not the most relaxing travel companion. When we go to explore cities or hike and ski in the mountains, we're not really going to relax, so she doesn't impact that too much. Although she does get up at 7am every day, so there is that...

So cute, and absolutely covered in sand

Another thing that happens to us on vacation is that BK almost always gets sick. This is why he can never take time to disconnect, because when he does, it never fails that his body pretty much shuts down. Not the best way to start our island vacation. Not to mention that he then tries to deny that he's sick and ends up feeling worse and worse. I'm sure you know someone like this too. I get that he was trying to make the most of our time there, but still.

I also think that in the future, I won't suggest a destination without it being somewhere we really want to go. The Canary Islands were a good idea in theory, as we wanted somewhere that would be warm but not a long flight from Switzerland, but it just wasn't that great of a destination. The only place I could think of that it sort of reminded me of was Cancun. I've been once and don't plan to go back.

Lastly was the resort. We stayed at Roca Nivaria Gran Hotel, which was nice, but not really our thing. It has great reviews and there are tons of articles written about it, but it's almost like we expected too much from it. It ended up being more of an all-inclusive (we did not do), which is just not worth it for us. From the amount that we don't eat to the fact that BK typically wants a drink that is not included on the all-inclusive list, I would rather just do everything a la carte and stop having to answer the question about whether or not we were on full-board or half-board.

Out for a morning bike ride

So what did we do on vacation? It was actually quite relaxing. We spent time by the pool, Baby K went to the nursery for a couple of hours each morning and afternoon, walked along the beach, took naps, went to the spa, and tried various restaurants around the area for dinner each night. So not bad by any measure, but I think just a little less than we were expecting.

So the verdict on vacation is...I think BK and I will always travel with our children, we will just refrain from attempting to have a relaxing vacation with them. We'll vacation at some far-flung destination while the grandparents get to soak up some good, quality time with Baby K and her future sibling. A win for everyone involved!