Our family vacation was pleasant and relaxing!
DS (10) has so much trouble with schedule/routine change that I've always come home from vacations wishing we hadn't gone, and since DS spent the last 3 months of school being absolutely horrid I wasn't holding out much hope.
I kept trying to figure out what we did differently this year and I realized it was a combination of two things. One was the location. We rented a house on one of the Finger Lakes in NY- the lake was literally three steps from the deck and side of the house facing the lake was entirely windows. The kids could get up in the morning and jump in the water while DH and I enjoyed a leisurely breakfast because we could see them from anywhere in the house (it was tiny). It made such a difference to not have them pestering us to go somewhere immediately.
The other thing that I think made a big difference was that we didn't have a plan. We usually try to make sure DS knows what's going to happen when we go away, but this year I was so exhausted before we left that I ended up telling the kids that I didn't know what we were going to do- we'd figure it out when the time came. We ended up having a great time and never having to change plans due to the weather or being too tired. Oddly he was even very accepting when I told him (after he complained) that we had spent time looking in toy stores so he could buy things with his spending money so it was only fair if he was patient while DH and I looked at books in the used book store.
I actually came home feeling relaxed and refreshed. Who would have thought not planning the vacation would make such a difference!
So glad you had a restful vacation. I remember the stress of taking my then