England and Ireland – Our version of a Dry Run
Vincent’s mother is turning 90 this year and so the entire Dixon clan are throwing a huge party. In a Castle no less, the actual 600 year old Butler Castle in Kilkenny. Should be quite a show. Anyway, it turns out to be perfect timing, right smack in the middle of 3 out of the 4 children’s Spring Break from school so we decided to make a real trip of it and spend a week in London and a week traveling around Ireland. For some reason we haven’t been back to London in eight years, since before the girls were born, even though my sister and Vincent’s brother both live there. Of course we are thinking of it as a dress rehearsal for our big trip even though this one is mostly geared around seeing family and we will have to be bringing fancy clothes which obviously would not be required in the RTW backpacks! It will give us a tiny taste of what we need to brush up on. So far I think we can get away with even smaller backpacks than what we have – both the girls are sharing one, David Evan has his own which seems to be primarily filled with nerf guns and mine is half filled with presents. But then comes Dad with his two huge cases! He keeps saying he won’t be bringing all this stuff on the actual RTW trip but I’ll believe it when I see it. The only problem is that we might end up with a false sense of security since getting around England and Ireland is such a breeze. We will pick up our sim card for the phone at the airport and we can probably get an oyster card to ride the tube the same day so we will have transport and communication sorted as soon as we arrive. Ah well, it is supposed to be an actual holiday after all….
Tags: England, Family, Ireland, Kids, Travel
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