Europa Park

Last Sunday we took the girls to Europa Park. Its a huge amusement park in Germany about 2 hours drive from Zurich. Really big (i think bigger than Euro Disney) and very nice. Its divided into sections each based on a different European country. Each section is done up with the theme of that country, the rides are based on popular things from that country and the cuisine is from that country. For eg in the England section, the rides were names Crazy taxis, Big Ben and football cars and there were a couple of pubs  where you could have your lunch.

We reached there at 10 in the morning (after waking up at 6:45, getting the girls ready and us out of the house by 7:45 am) and there was already a huge crowd there. After looking at the map we quickly realised there was no way we could cover the whole place in one day so we just decided to do however much we could. We went on some kiddie rides in Italy and France (that sounds so funny doesn't it!) and then i was captivated by the Silver Bullet (11 years plus). I had to ride it. It was a huge roller coaster, which takes you many metres high up and drops you, and your stomach, down suddenly. Its fast, thrilling and lots of fun. Only the hubby has no stomach for huge rollercoaster and anyway someone had to be with the girls, so i queued up alone and the hubby said he would take the girls to the mini rollercoaster in Greece. The ride was amazing, and when i was done I asked the hubby where he was and he said he was taking the girls for their second run of Pegasus, the mini roller coaster in Greece.

View of Silver Bullet from the waiting line!

When i reached there i realised it was for 4 years plus and A was only 3 and a 1/2. She met the height criteria and the hubby just coolly said she was 4. And after the ride started he had second thoughs (too late!!) because it was super fast and quite scary. He got a little grief (just a bit, because i wouldv'e done the same since she met the height criteria) from me about A being put in a risky situation,and I really thank God, nothing happened to her, but we shamelessly proceeded to go on the roller coaster again with the girls- them in front and us behind. We have a lovely picture at the scariest moment- A looks terrified, S's cap covers her face but she's gripping the front rod and back seat tightly and the hubby and I look weird! When we asked A she said she loved the ride and when we went a third time with S friend in the evening she was so excited.
After Greece, we went to England where there were many kiddie (3 or 4+) rides for the girls and they suddenly got very hungry so we ended up eating at the worst place possible there. They had fish nuggets and we had burgers but they were too oily, and when we met up with our friends later they told us about he lovely tapas lunch they had in Spain. And we later stumbled upon lovely Greek restaurants. Never mind!
After lunch we went to the Children's play area where the girls freaked out on huge slides,  and even managed to do some boating on their own. I was a bit worried about sending A out on a boat on her own, but she did fine! Next was the Enchanted Forest which had many cottages set up on the Grimms fairy tales. We visited Sleeping Beauty's castle, Red Riding Hood's grandmother's cottage, rung the bell for Rapunzel to let her hair down and even took part in an adventure to find a missing magic book. Lots of fun.
In Spain we went on the flying chairs, ashamed to admit I ended up getting RGed by the crowd (I thought they would follow rules but the singles line kids ran into the double chairs) and S had to sit on a single chair behind me instead of us sitting safely in a double chair. My heart was in my mouth throughout the ride, but it was ok. S had a safety chain and I told her to hold the rails safely. A was safe with the hubby on a double seat-he had no problems running in front of the others!
We met up with S best friend M from school's family after that and redid the Pegasus roller coaster ride. Its amazing how S and A changed after meeting M. Just before they had both been fighting to sit on the stroller, after they met M, S wanted to walk holding M's hand and A wanted to walk holding S hand! Again fighting over that too. As for their mum and dad, forgotten in the excitement of meeting their friend!

We finished the Pegasus ride again, and by this time it was very warm. It was a hot sunny day, we'd been out in the sun since 10 am and by around 4 pm we were quite exhausted.  We did a couple more kiddie rides (bumper cars, flying cars etc etc)- mainly it was the hubby with S and her friend M with her had since A had gone off to sleep in the stroller and I was chatting the M's mom. The highlight for them after the Pegasus boat was the rocking ship. They also wanted to go on the Rapids ride but that had a 1/2 hour wait so we decided to skip it and take them to the indoor play area in Portugal.
Around 7 pm we decided to call it quits for the day. We picked up pizza from Italy (i just love the way that sounds!) and it was 9:30 pm by the time we got back home. S slept throughout in the car and also back home.
A fun day out. Maybe next time we stay overnight at the hotel there because the park is too big to cover in one day and I missed out on some of the exciting roller coasters!

Thoughts and Musings

Its been a hectic month. After having virtually no visitors in the last 10 months except my parents, we suddenly had two within a span of 10 days. The first was my cousin, really more of a sister whom I grew up with who visited with her hubby and 10 month old daughter A. S and our A took an immense liking to their cousin A who was absolutely adorable and S has been pestering me to give her a baby also soon (I love the way these kids refer to siblings as their babies!). They were here only for three days, but it was 3 hectic days of sight seeing, eating, gossipping and drinking way too much wine. It was so different for my cousin and me when we were growing up, we had long summer days with nothing to do but idle our time away together. And now we have to sneak time after the kids have gone to sleep to catch up on old times, and that too after her making all the effort to travel half the world to see us. I wish I had tons of money and could fly wherever i wanted, whenever i did. The days ended up being quite hectic because I had to manage S school schedule (i just kept A home) - i had friends taking her home for playdates and me landing up later in the evening to pick her up so I could get more time in Zurich city with my cousin.
Soon after my hubby's sister visited us en route to a conference. The girls adore her and she spoils them. It works out well :) We did a lot of day trips with her and it did get quite hectic managing the house, sightseeing and the girls.
After that its been a series of end of year celebration at S school - sports day (was that a tiring 2 hours in the sun), making cupcakes with the class to belatedly celebrate a teachers birthday and finally organising the end of year celebration party. Add to this, our sudden fascination with playing tennis in 30 degrees heat and suddenly we find that our bodies can take it no more. The day of the end of year party S woke up with high fever, cough and vomiting. I had a bad sore throat. Since I was class mom I had to help organise the party and stupidly I thought S would feel bad if she missed out so I took her there for an hour. Big mistake. She was exremely tired within an hour and started crying. It was very hot and A started howling asking to be carried, so I had to leave within 15 mins of the party starting and rush home. But we had a 3 hour nap in the afternoon and another 10 hour sleep at night. And I think it was a way of our bodies telling us to slow down, to relax and to take a break. I think I've just been pushing it too much, taking on too many activities, playdates for S, and activities for me as well, and not taking a break in the weekends either- last weekend we had a birthday party and park on Saturday and a long day in an amusement park (Europa park) on Sunday. My problem is I've always kept myself busy, I just can't sit still, but i think its having a toll on me and the kids. S now asks what to do if we're home for half an hour and there's no activity planned. And she looks tired also by the end of the week. I think its time to take a step back, relax and just do nothing.

In another 3 weeks I'll be in Bangalore and what better place to do that than my parents house!

Separately I had an interesting discussion with some women in my book club.  I found them to be strangely content being at home travelling with their husbands as expat wives after giving up a career. Maybe its to do with the fact that they have much elder kids who are of course much more independent and are in school the whole day leaving the mums free to do things like hiking, skiing, tennis, board games club (doesn't that sounds like fun!) etc during the day instead of having a little one where my schedule consists of either dropping or picking up the kids, or making their lunch, feeding them, putting them down for a nap or taking them for playdates. Maybe I would be less resentful of not having a job if I was having fun in my 'free' time instead of being a driver/cook/maid all in one. I'm sorry I just can't look at this situation and say I get to spend this time with my kids, isn't that great. Yes, it would be great if i actually got to do fun things with them. But having two youngs kids (especially since I've not been that  great in disciplining in training them) is a lot of physical work and after you finish all the daily chores, if you get to spend an hour quality time with the kids thats a bonus.

Wow so much ranting, but its so easy to get despondent in such a situation and I find that keeping myself extremely busy at least stops that.