The "Paris" Trip

Not Paris but who cares.

For those who have been following along for a while, you may recall last year when, after 18 months of living the fast life in Sydney, we made the decision to bring the family back to the simpler life we had spent the previous 10 years building in Tasmania. We thought it would take 6 to 12 months to make it happen.

However, instead of doing things like a 'normal' person and finding a new job before leaving a current one, in true mid-life crisis fashion, The Pianoman ditched the big corporate job and with no job keeping us in Sydney we sold most of our worldly possessions, bought a caravan, packed up the house, the Kidlets and the Whippet and less than 3 weeks later we were travelling around Australia. The money would last around 3 months and we hoped that would be enough time to find another job while on the road......it was and looking back it was the best decision we could have made.

The only little thing was that on our fridge were 2 return tickets to Paris which were booked for our 10 year Wedding Anniversary last December. This is a trip that we have been planning for around 10 years. It had almost become a bit of a joke among our friends. If one of us had a bad day we would get "don't worry only 6 years until Paris isn't it Mel!" or when I had done nothing all day but breastfeed the twins around the clock and was up to my eyeballs in nappies I would joke "it's OK, only 4 years until Paris". The Paris trip was symbolic of the desire to spend some decent quality time together without the children - something we haven't done together in our 8 years of being Parents - and to celebrate the end of changing nappies every single day for a period of 7 years, 4 months and 8 days.

The destination was really secondary to us being together. I still maintain I would be perfectly happy being on a plane for 24 hours and simply enjoying reading a magazine from cover to cover and sipping on champagne without anyone sitting on my lap. Bliss! We do go out together and have had weekends away individually so we do get a little break from time to time while the other one stays at home with the Kids.  But aside from Weddings or Funerals, the only time we have been away together just the two of us without Kids was a 2 night camping trip 5 years ago. On that trip I think we were so unaccustomed to finishing a sentence without interruption that my body went into shock and I came back pregnant with Twins. I'm already pregnant now so I can't really get myself into too much trouble with another trip sans Kids.

When The Pianoman left his job in Sydney, what we really needed was to have time together to decompress and 3 months travelling around the country trumped 10 days in Paris. We couldn't get a refund on the tickets but vaguely thought we could postpone it for a year.

So I recently enquired about said tickets and was informed by British Airways that the tickets had to be used within 12 months of the date of purchase. We bought the tickets last July. It was now June. Oh Dear! So it seems we have to go on a holiday by NEXT WEEK (cue the mini-violins!).

We were also informed that we couldn't get to Paris anyway because the tickets we purchased were low season December tickets but we are now in June which is double the price being peak season. We actually don't have the time or the money to spend on a trip right now so we can only go as far as the credits will allow. And somewhere cheap. We also had to fit a potential trip around the in-laws, who were all set to look after the Kids last December while they were on school holidays themselves from the jobs in the teaching profession. Fortunately, they are on school holidays now and are making their way from Alice Springs down to Hobart as we speak. It's a big ask and we are so grateful for them for allowing us this little indulgence.

So the Paris trip is now the "Paris" trip.

We are actually off to Vietnam this Friday! Nothing has been planned because that's just how I roll and you probably also know by now that I don't like to plan things. Planning takes away all the fun for me. I didn't want to cause the in-laws any angst though so the flights have been booked.

Anyone been to Vietnam? Or Paris even? Did you love it? Have you done a "Paris" trip or have one on the horizon?