Recently, my husband and three kids were playing in Mediterranean (地中海), swimming and floating in the pictureperfect sea. It was ridiculously beautiful in Majorca, Spain. The way the sun danced across the water and how the blue horizon was dotted with storybook sailboats were such beautiful scenes.
My husband and I always dreamed about taking our kids on a trip around the world. It was one of the things we talked at length about. When we imagined our life with the children, we hoped we would have.
Fourteen years later, we had three boys who were growing up faster by the day. It was time to make good on those plans. We renewed our passports, and then packed our bags. We showed our kids the world. It was about experiencing the dozens of flights and trains and taxis together. We showed them how wonderful, how diverse, and how fascinating the world is. We wanted them to learn all that we had learned ourselves, through our own travels.
But there was something more than that: What we really wanted is to slow down time. We wanted the days to last a bit longer, and the weeks to take their time. The years with our children are going too fast. We wanted to put the brakes on our busy lives for a year, and just be with our kids. We wanted a break from the daily morning routine of making lunches, eating breakfast and going out the door in time for school. We needed family time out.
It was the wonderful two months in Europe, full of incredible moments. When we look back at our lives, I know we'll be glad we did it. I know we'll be happy that this is a chapter of the story of our family.
