Our New Vacation Set-Up

One consideration we had to make when we decided to move had to do with school vacations.

I work in Massachusetts and the kids go to school in New Hampshire. Translation - we have different February and April vacation weeks. My mother gave us good advice - which was not to choose our community based on two weeks of the year. Plus, eventually the kids will be older and can stay home alone or will be making plans with friends etc.

I don’t regret our choice, but it does make our school vacation look a little different.

It’s not a horrible situation, at the end of the day. I have a week off while the kids are at school. Theoretically, that means I get to drop them off for 8am and have the rest of the day to run errands or just come home and get some alone time. School gets out at 3, and we still have the option of daycare/after school program until 6pm if I had an appointment that required hours.

Theoretically.

Last year the kids were both home sick Monday and Tuesday, Zach got sent home Thursday and stayed home sick Friday. So, yeah. Theoretically. I actually made zero plans this February vacation because I was mentally preparing for a similar situation. Thus far, Dominic has been home with a fever Monday and today (Tuesday), and we’ll see how the rest of the day/night/morning goes before we make a final decision about Wednesday. Oh, and the kids are getting dismissed Friday so I can take them to visit my parents.

Hopefully this April vacation will be like last year and make up for February. Last April vacation was awesome.

So where do the kids go when they’re on vacation and I’m back at work? They spend half a week with my parents and the rest of the week with Dennis’ parents. They have a blast, get a lot of grandparent time, and Dennis and I also get a little downtime in the evenings. Last year I made time to exercise after school, we cooked interesting dishes for dinner that the kids don’t like to eat, and basically only had to be responsible for ourselves.

By the end of the week I totally missed them, but didn’t regret the downtime.

In the end, I’m glad we didn’t plan our community based on two weeks of the year. We make it work and it’s actually a pretty good arrangement. And even though it looks like this February vacation is going to be like last - home with sick kids - I still get to be at home and that’s awesome.