It’s Winter here.

It’s cold

and my mind and heart likes to imagine the wonderful warmth of the sun and the ocean

and the deep blue of a cloudless sky.

I think about escape and a place where I can relax

but I’m wondering how do you define  a good  holiday?

I was talking with the kids

and their response was “one that creates amazing memories”.

So wise, those kids of mine.

They sat there, in the freezing cold of the morning

and recalled all these amazing things that we had done

while we were in Tasmania.

Now, Dave and I had taken a totally different view to that break.

It was that Tasmania was lovely but not geared towards children and not one that we felt we would do again, as a family.

It was freezing and we took the five kids – a first as AJ and Mal had always spent their holiday time with their mother

on a driving holiday

in a seven seater car.

We went on The Spirit of Tasmania and stayed in an old colonial house

and drove to all the things we wanted to see.

The kids fought

David and I fought -

a seven seater car with seven people, pillows, supplies, snacks and maps

suddenly seemed like the old circus act of cramming as many clowns into a mini as possible.

What’s that?

You’d like a minute here to visualise that?

Go ahead.

Yeah, squeezy, huh?

I was eleven weeks pregnant with Ivy and Noah and bleeding.

It was very stressful

but the kids,

they don’t remember any of that.

They remember waking up at sunrise on the huge ship and watching the locals moon us as we came into port.

They remember laughing so hard, they thought their insides might burst.

They remember the house and how they thought it was haunted and the enormous size and how everyone got their own room.

They remember waking up to eggs and bacon

and finding a large herd of sheep in the backyard, one morning

and how much fun it was to chase them.

They think about the day they saw their first Tasmanian devil and how Immy exclaimed,

on seeing a wombat waddling by,

that she thought wombats lived on their backs, with their legs in the air,

she had seen that much roadkill.

They talk about Port Arthur

and the fact that Mal and AJ found their way into one of the out of bounds areas

and aimed the ‘guns’ at our guide, who we had escaped from,

the huge  maze, that we all got lost inside

and  the the devonshire tea at the cafe, surrounded by lavender.

They remember our last day at Cradle Mountain

and how we all went searching for snow.

They don’t remember the drama or the fighting or the long drive

They remember the adventure,

they know only the good memories.

I thought about everything they had said

and decided

that I needed to change my definition of an ideal holiday

because they were right

a great holiday is one that creates amazing memories,

that and being able to spend quality time together

but I’d love to know

how would you describe a perfect holiday?

I’ve been lucky enough to be nominated as one of Kidspot’s top 50 bloggers and the big prize is an escape to Dunk Island. There are so many wonderful bloggers on the list.

If you want to, though, you could  click on the above button and vote for me.