What makes a holiday? {Guest post by Little Gumnut)

This week's guest post comes to you from the lovely Sophie at Little Gumnut who is currently residing just over the ditch in Australia. Sophie, her hubby and 3 kids are no strangers to travel, having lived in the UK, France, New Zealand, and Fiji. Sophie has written some fantastic posts about travelling with kids and in this post, Sophie explores what makes a holiday on their trip to Melbourne.

Sophie's post really resonated with me as we embarked on a similar trip to Melbourne last year with a 2.5 and 5.5 year old in tow and we also had to make sure that we didn't overdo it by trying to cram too much into each day and wear ourselves out.

I was so glad I re-read this post before we embarked on our big adventure as it was a timely reminder for me that we needed to plan enough time for rest and relaxation in-between the adrenalin rush of sightseeing.

************************************

Little Gumnut: What makes a holiday?

Iconic Melbourne.  Big City Challenger to Sydney.  Home of a bazillion crafters and makers of handmade goods.  Shopping and cafe destination extraordinaire.

What makes a holiday?  Do you have to see everything in a place?  Should you sightsee til your legs drop off or should you do nothing and simply rest?  What makes it relaxing?  Should work take precedence over family time?  At the end of the day will we say I wish I had worked overtime on that project or will we say I'm glad we carved out time for holidays with the kids when they were young?

The list of the things we didn't see is as long as your arm, but as we walked around downtown, three adults and five kids, I watched smartly dressed lawyers, fashion luvvies and business people rushing about I felt privileged to be on holiday, privileged to be taking time out of life and spending family time together.

With five children under 10 between us, we talked about what holidays used to be like before kids.  Long lie ins, eating where and when we liked, no limit on the amount of walking we could do.  Having kids however, does also give you some perks... a legitimate excuse to go to theme parks, zoos, ziplines, cool science shows and museums for kids are a darn sight more interesting.  There's the added bonus of balance too.

Seeing Melbourne in a week after doing a 10 hour roadtrip meant three days of sightseeing followed by two days of rest.  Bushwalks were gentle, casual affairs rather than exhausting goal conquering exercises.  We saw key parts of the city but also got have lots of coffee and snack stops and called time half way through each afternoon.  Oddly enough, we came away relaxed, feeling as though we had had two weeks away rather than just one.

If you only have a week to see Melbourne with the family our top picks are:

1. A walk in the Dandenong Hills and tea at Sassafrass or Olinda villages.  They currently have a Spring Festival on in the Hills.
2. Ride the Free Tram round Melbourne's town centre.  Yes, that's right, a FREE vintage tram!  It takes you round the major sites of the city on a 48 minute tour.  If we'd had more time that day, we would have done the full monty.
3. Flinders Street Station and the surrounding area seems to be really central.  Next time we'll go on a historic walking tour of noteworthy historic buildings, shops and cafes in the area.  This time we walked through Chinatown in Little Bourke Street, down Collins Street, home to the Regency Theatre, lots of historic churches and the Town Hall, and down to Flinders Street and the National Art Gallery.  A very do-able walk with small children and not too long.
4. Victoria Street Markets is a fun place to be.  Make sure you go earlier rather than later in the morning and grab a coffee and something yummy to eat.  We arrived just before it shut at 2pm!
5. Drive over the West Gate Bridge and through the CBD at night.  All lit up, Melbourne is a beauty and on our date night, the hubster and I had coffee in Williamstown, admired the city lights from across the river and then drove over the bridge, past the Casino and through the CBD.  Admittedly we did get lost on our mission to find away through the one-way system but it was very pretty!  Don't forget Melbourne has some pretty strange road rules due to the trams taking precedence to drivers but if you can navigate your way through, you'll love seeing it all lit up.  Parking was about $32 for a full day in daylight hours but only about $12 for the evening so when we go next time we'll probably park and visit one of the cafes in the CBD.

Have you visited Melbourne?  What are your top picks to visit?  What makes a holiday relaxing for you?

Original post over at Little Gumnut here.

*********************************

Sophie is an amazing and engaging writer and captures the beauty of life so effortlessly in her words. She's involved in many creative pursuits, and growing up abroad has given her a unique perspective on life which she shares wonderfully and openly in her writing. You can follow her blog at Little Gumnut, or via Facebook: Little Gumnut or Instagram: @littlegumnut. Do head on over and say hi!

Bath in all her glory

Bath is one of the most well-known cities in England. Its history dates right back to Roman times with the very popular Roman baths a major tourist draw card. Up until now I'm ashamed to say my only experience of Bath was a quick visit to the Roman Baths and the annual shopping pilgrimages we used to take for the great summer sales while I was living in England.

I'd never taken a proper walk around the city - it is so much more than just the main street and baths.

Grandma and Granddad had kindly offered to look after the boys for the day so we could have a day to ourselves, so we sure made the most of it.

After parking at the Park and Ride and taking a bus into town, we walked past the abbey, and then down to Pulteney Bridge and weir which reminded me very much of the bridges in Venice and Florence which also have shops lining the bridge.

The bunting in this side alley made me feel as if I were transported to some quaint French village.

It was wonderful seeing the names of places I used to frequent in my time in England dotted around the city.

We then wandered up towards the famous Circus and Royal Crescent.

The Circus built in the mid 1700's was designed in three equal parts with the centre of the Circus designed to provide a space for theatre or civic functions.

The facades on the townhouses that make up the circus are phenomenal in their detail.

Just a short walk from the Circus is the Royal Crescent, a street of 30 terraced houses laid out in a sweeping semi circle.

Once we took our tourist hats off, the shopping then beckoned. We split up and spent an hour or so wandering the streets before meeting up at 1pm for lunch at Jamie's Italian.

The Jamie Oliver revolution is everywhere in England, and we felt we must take advantage of this one-off opportunity to eat out at one of his restaurants. Although with Jamie's deli right next door providing lighter but no less lovely selections to whet the appetite that also looked equally appealing.

We waited eagerly for our lunch - Mark looks to be nearly chewing off his fingernails in anticipation in this pic.

We weren't disappointed when the meals arrived. Baked Shetland Salmon with lemony ricotta, balsamic roasted veg and a crunchy, zesty salad for me and the best looking pork chop I've ever seen for Mark. The flavours were UH-mazing.

After spending another few hours perusing and spending up at kids Gap (lots of great kids stuff on sale for the boys) and Superdry (my favourite new store!), we drove home accompanied by the glorious sight of the skies clearing after a day of heavy rain showers.

Travelling Highs, Lows and Woes

The best laid plans have a way of coming majorly unstuck at times. Especially when you've been going at it for days on end trying to make the most of each and every day here.

I'd been ever so careful all winter in NZ keeping up the lemon, honey and coconut oil drinks as well as lots of vitamin C for all the family. We'd had a very good run of health and we were hoping it would continue for the whole trip - but that was a bridge too far it would seem. The day after we got back from London I started feeling a bit coldy, which would have been OK if it had just stayed like that. I put it down to picking up some random bug - who knows what bugs are floating around the Underground. But two days later on the morning we woke up at Legoland I felt horrific with a capital H. Body aching, nauseous, head pounding, the works. It was made worse by the fact we'd all been sharing a room in a hotel near Legoland so at 4.45am when I found myself sitting on the edge of the bed willing myself not to throw up I thought the day probably couldn't get any worse.

Over the weekend we'd also had our fair share of highs and lows. We'd been able to spend a good part of the weekend catching up with some of our most special and oldest friends in the world, Mark and Mary-Ann. These lovely people were our bridesmaid and groomsman at our wedding nearly 10 years ago and they will always have a special place in our heart. It was the first time we'd met their beautiful children, Isobelle (now 5) and George (1.5) and Mylo and Isobelle had a great old time hanging out for the afternoon whilst Noah went off to watch Yeovil Town play football with Daddy and Mark.

Mark and Mary-Ann had already had an eventful trip down to Somerset with their little guy projectile vomiting in the car and then again all over the dinner table on Friday night. Thankfully all seemed calm on that front on Saturday and George slept happily for some of the afternoon and then tried to take on the world at the park ending up swinging like a monkey six feet up off a rope bridge giving Mary-Ann, me and her mum-in-law total heart failure - thankfully Mary-Ann managed to catch him in time before he fell.

We were back at Mark and Mary-Ann's parents place waiting for the boys to get back from the football when chaos broke loose as after poo number 3 of the afternoon for Mylo I accidentally pushed down on the hand soap too hard while trying to get some for him and it flew out and a massive splodge caught Mylo clean in the left eye. You should have heard the screams and cries and he wouldn't calm down no matter what we tried. In the end we just had to go home and put him in a warm shower and give his eye a bath and he continued to squint out of one eye for the rest of the night. Oh boy - how bad did I feel! It was OK in the morning again though...phew.

Going out to dinner was a lovely distraction - us four adults went out and enjoyed a lovely, relaxing Thai-come-Indian meal out together without any dramas to accompany but there was more to come the next day.

We'd asked Mark and Mary-Ann to come for brunch and see Grandma and Grandad and unfortunately little George had another projectile vomit which managed to go all over his dad, Noah and Mylo as well as the stairs. It was pandemonium for a while as we tried to get it cleared up and everyone sanitised before we could actually sit down to brunch together.

Then the trip up to our hotel near Legoland was very eventful with torrential rain and surface flooding like we'd never seen. Mark and Mary-Ann had left for their home half an hour before us and said that their car aquaplaned right into the next lane at one stage, and we also had a few scary moments ourselves along the way.

Once we finally got there, we did however have a wonderful evening catching up with the lovely Claire, Paul and Molly - Claire was one of Mark's university friends originally - she was actually in NZ visiting Mark when Mark and I first started dating and she also helped Mark pick out my engagement ring a few years later. It was so great to finally meet her hubby and the precious bundle of joy that is lil miss 8 month-old Molly.

Come Monday morning and you can imagine that feeling like I did the walk through Legoland park was NO walk in the park for me (more on Legoland in another post though) but I somehow made it to 4pm and we then drove the 2 hours straight home to Somerset. We had originally planned to go and see Mark and Mary-Ann for dinner but I really just needed to be home and back in bed. It was lucky we did make that decision as within an hour of dinner Mark suddenly felt unwell and was on the toilet at both ends and Granddad and Mylo succumbed to feeling icky the next morning too. It was almost comedic the number of buckets we had at the ready and how many times we heard the sound of feet thumping through the upstairs hallway as a mad dash to the bathroom ensued. Thank goodness all our major travelling was out of the way and we could actually have a few quiet days here at home with nothing planned to recover before heading up to Wales this weekend.

Note the bowl at the ready just in case

So this travelling business...it's not all sweetness and light and amazing memory-making experiences. It can be darn hard work at times, but I guess you just gotta roll with the punches and realise that you can't expect to have the highs without the lows!