On a truly relaxing vacation...

As is often the case, workdays and school days are more rhythmic and easier to handle than vacations. We can keep at the schedule and activities. It's busy, but manageable. It's usually that sick days, or school holidays, or vacations, are much more stressful.

I haven't had a truly relaxing, real vacation for quite a long time. In fact, that has ceased to exist since our firstborn which was years ago. When the kids were younger, it's hard to get any vacations at all. Afterall, they're growing so fast that their schedule, needs, taste and preferences are changing every few months; it could be hard to keep up. Their attention span is short, and physically they don't last for more than half a day before they crash. It's when the kids get to maybe 9-10 in age that things can get easier to handle.

It's under this pretext that I experience a truly relaxing vacation for years. The kids are getting bigger now, that they don't want to do summer day-camps anymore. (They say it's boring.) I can understand it, since alot of day-camps are more like babysitting pen for pre-teens. Granted that they try to organize different activities for kids, it's often just touch-and-go. But I don't want to organize those educational camps for the kids in the summer, where they would drill on life or academic skills. Summers should be the time for kids to chill and have fun.

So, for a change, this summer, we took two different trips, one to a big city, and one to rural country.

We did the usual in the city. Visits to museum, water park, lots of restaurants. I love museums, but kids' attention span is still rather limited. At least they're at an age where they can go off on their own periodically to check out exhibits, and we would meet up again. And the water park was a blast, and help to kill off their excess energy, fast. We would bathe in the shade on sunny days while the kids ran off from one game to another, and we wouldn't have to be the doting parents, for a change. Decision which restaurants to go to is easy. Kids actually don't give much thoughts about which restaurant we're going to, as long as it has lots of meats.

And then, we have the country trip with a totally different experience. We slaughtered a sheep; built our own fire for bonfire and BBQ; camping out; milking and herding cows; feeding pigs and chickens; even playing in creek and stream. There's alot of home cooking, with all the fresh ingredients from local produce. I even got my wish to see another shooting star (since my first/last time when I was little), and found Big Dipper for the first time on my own (no, I'm not very good at identifying constellation). In hindsight, it's not a bad thing that we're totally cut off from the world, given that there's little to no internet access. That's how we can enjoy the here-and-now. I can't ask for more.

The good thing about it is, we don't need to plan out our day. We'll check the weather at the start of day, and do whatever that Mother Nature would allow us. I haven't relaxed like that for years now. It's awesome.