Our last night in Seattle. What a great trip!
For both our heads and our relationship!
It has been FAR, FAR too long since we have taken a trip, just the two of us. Our oldest is 4 1/2 years old and the last time we had a night(s) alone was prior to his birth. All our trips have had one or both boys with us in this time so this trip was a long time coming. Our days were mostly spent wandering downtown Seattle without any real direction. We had a few places that we wanted to see but mostly it was just a chance to chill without any real plans.
The impetus for the trip came from a timeshare offer that we took up. The meeting was interesting and I could see the benefit of their service if we had disposable income to play with but with 2 kids under 5 and only one major income, I don't think we could fork over $10k+. The nice part is that they gave us a nice hotel room for 3 nights in downtown Seattle. We had to pay for parking and the tax on the room, but in the end it cost us total for the room what one night at regular cost would be. I would gladly sit through their presentation again for a trip like this.
4 1/2 years without a night alone has made us both a bit on edge. The chaos, noise, responsibility, work, fun, happiness, anger, and adventure of life with kids has been rough to keep our relationship as close as we want. One of the things in the presentation that was useful information for us was that we HAVE TO prioritize "US". WE need a chance to keep ourselves together and happy, not just the whole family unit, but us the core. If the parents aren't happy, generally the whole family isn't happy, or at least content.
Yesterday we checked out of our room around 11 am and then ended up at the Seattle Pinball Museum right as they opened at noon. $15 for entry and you can play on over 40 different pinball machines from over 60 years of history. It was pretty damned cool and we spent about an hour and a half there in which time I was able to play almost every single machine.
After the museum we went to Georgetown Brewing for samples and some growlers. They are one of the few breweries I have been to that has this policy but Gerogetown doesn't sell pints, they offer you up to 7 samples of their beer and you have a little card that gets checked off with each. Next to the samples is the kegs sales and the growlers sales. The only other brewery I can think of that does this is Big Sky Brewing in Missoula Montana.
This trip gave us a bit of an eye opener to the fact that we still need to focus on the two of us from time to time and not let things go for so long before we take the time for ourselves.
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Our oldest is 4.5 also, we left her one time for 2 days but since having two children we’ve never been apart. Maybe one of these days 🙂
It was so nice to get a little bit of silence and time to not really have to make important decisions. The tiny bit of down time helps to recharge to "parent battery" a bit.
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This is really cool brother, thanks for sharing your experience on here. I enjoyed reading.
Thank you. It was a fun trip and we seriously needed it.
It is really important, especially when the kids are little to make time for simply couple time. Your marriage needs the attention too. It's hard to do when you have kids and animal responsibility on a homestead, but it can be done.
That is one of our biggest take aways from the trip, we can't forget about us. As the boys get older it becomes easier to shuttle them off to someone for a night or two as well.