Our next trip

Here's the next big announcement:  our next trip will be the big one to England! 

Photograph from Singapore Airlines.

Travelling this time will be myself, my dear husband and two sons (5 and 7), my parents and my brother.  My ancestors come from England (my husband's come from Ireland) and I was raised with British children's books.  Enid Blyton, Edith Nesbit and Arthur Ransome were some of my most read authors growing up and I still revisit them today.  I also prefer English weather.  I don't cope well with Australia's heat - I get a headache after only 20 minutes in the sun wearing a hat and sunglasses and I've had heat-stroke twice.  So it feels a little like we will be going home, even though I've never been there before.

We'll be going for a whole month in October 2013 and will be flying Singapore Airlines with a stopover in Singapore each each way for a 6 hour sleep in a real bed.

I'm especially excited about:

• My youngest son's first overseas trip.
• My oldest son's first overseas trip that he will remember.  He has recently learned how to use a camera and is able to tell me a short sentence about what happened in the day so I'm excited for him to start his first travel diary.
• Seeing the country I've been reading about my whole life.
• Castles and stately homes.
• Stonehenge.
• The children being old enough to manage two activities in a day with a break for lunch and a playground or garden in the middle.  Previously one activity in a day has been all they could manage.
• Having extra family travelling with us to help occupy the children, particularly on the VERY long flights.

Some challenges this trip will be:

• My youngest son's disability includes difficulty walking quickly or for a long time.  He gets pretty tired and often wants to be carried.  He'll be too heavy to be carried around much by the time we travel so I'm planning lots of opportunities for him to rest and will look out for a cheap umbrella stroller to purchase when we get there if we can cram him in it.  I suspect our next trip after this one will involve a wheelchair, but we haven't got one yet and are putting it off as long as possible.  My father also has a dodgy knee and back so a slow pace will be good for him too.  We will split into a couple of groups when the more fit and active people want to do the more physically demanding activities.
• My youngest son is also having difficulty toilet training, again related to his disability.  We will be using pull-ups (unless he manages to toilet train in the mean-time) and having a messy change once a day, which will be interesting when change-rooms are only designed for babies and tables can't take his weight.

I'm also planning to take only one carry on bag for myself and one of my son's.  My husband will carry the other so our family will have two bags total.  More on this and a copy of my packing list later.  This plan is so we have one bag to carry and one hand free to hold a child's hand.  My boys both have an intellectual disability so being able to hold their hand is essential to keep them safe. 

As you can tell, I'm a little bit excited!  We're going to be saving madly until then so don't expect any posts about big purchases between now and October :)