Don’t let anyone tell you that travelling by air with small children is easy; it ain’t.  Having said that, don’t let anyone tell you that it’s so hard it’s not worth doing either, because it definitely is.

We had a very long day yesterday, getting up at 0400h (BST), taxi to Heathrow, flight to Newark (LIberty International) and then driving the hire car from the airport to Livingston, NJ.  By the time I crashed at around 2130h (EDT) I had nearly been up for 24 hours, and doing that with two children under three is no picnic, but overall it was not only worth it, but it was also “not that bad”.

Clearly, we were lucky that K slept for four out of the seven hours, and we were lucky that O is very keen on drawing and colouring, and that even she deigned to sleep a little.  We were also lucky that the flight crew took pity on us and moved us to a set of bulkhead seats that had been vacated by a group who had been lucky enough to be upgraded to Business Class.  Even then, we had our moments – there was the pencil situation, and the constant screaming all the way from the airport to our hosts’ home to name but two issues – but the general feeling of utter relaxation that has come about from being on vacation would have made an ordeal a hundred times worse completely worth it.

Later this week we are going to drive off into New England to take in the sights and sounds of a part of America that my wife and I have long been keen to visit, and it is my sincere hope that we are allowed to enjoy it by the kids, but I am optimistic based on the idea that the flight was more than twice as long as any of the drives we are planning to do.

Pictures and more musings to follow…

Oh yeah, there were wild deer in the back garden when we got up this morning.