Happy holidays 1 : Berlin

This winter we've embarked on a long driving holiday in Europe covering Berlin, Brussels and Paris. We wanted to spend winter in Europe ( last year we were in the States and the year before in Europe) seeing the wonderful festivities around Christmas- its like being in India for Diwali. Some Internet research showed us that the three top cities for Christmas was Berlin, Paris and Brussels and we are always game or long drives so off we set.
The girls have 3 weeks holidays and the hubby took off three weeks as well. I manged to get 2 weeks and 2 days :) So on Wednesday evening I got back from office at 6 and we set off for the first hotel at Nurenberg- halfway between Berlin and Zurich. We had chosen a hotel just off the highway and it was just a night stop to break the 9 hour drive to Berlin. We reached at 10:30 at night, and after a leisurely breakfast ( the girls discovered a children's play room near the breakfast room) and were thrilled, we set off at 11 am. After many breaks ( let me tell you the loos off the German highways are terrible) we reached our apartment in Berlin in the evening. It's a nice service apartment so we can have our own breakfast, have either lunch or dinner in the apartment and only suffer the tasteless European food for one meal :)
On Friday we walked past the famous Berlin sights- Brandenburg gate, victory statue etc and reached the Berlin zoo. The kids were quite sporting, except for the last 15 mins when A insisted on being carried.we realized it was a 3 km walk in the cold weather. The Berlin zoo was awesome and there were so many animals-seals, hippos, lions, tigers, rhinos etc etc and all quite close up. We ended up spending the whole day there. We got back to the hotel and after an evening siesta set out for. South Indian restaurant which was terrible. That night S got a stomach bug and spend the whole night throwing up and recovering the next day. Luckily it was 24 hour thing and by the next evening she was bouncing around. 
On Sunday we went to the national history museum which has the tallest mounted dinosaur on display in the world and it was great fun. The museum had  really informative stuff about the solar system, dinosaurs, animals and birds and evolution, and S was a bit interested in it ( gets better each time) but A got quite bored after the animals section. In the afternoon we saw Frozen in the cinema- a treat for the girls as they are not allowed in Zurich cinemas (even for children's films). Unfortunately that night A got the same stomach bug so we spend the night rushing to the loo, and the day recovering in the room.
Over the next two days we saw some of the famour Berlin sights - the Berlin wall, Checkpoint Charlie, the Dome etc and on 24th night Santa visited and the girls were happy with the contents of their stockings on 25th morning. They had written a list of items Santa should bring and after a last trip to the shop on 24th evening (while the girls were asleep) we were able to get at least 2 items on each of their lists plus some additional small stuff (like Olaf the snowman).
We left Berlin for Brussels on Christmas day, more on that in the next post.

The fun stuff and the not so fun stuff

What I enjoy with the girls

1.     I love skiing with S. Yesterday we went for our first skiing of this season. A had her first lesson today and S brushed up on what she learnt last year. We went up to the top of the Hoch Y Brig mountain with the trainer and S and I skied down, and it was just amazing. Being able to ski with S, in the sun, gliding down the mountain and looking at the beautiful snow on the mountains

2.     Ice skating with S. S got very good at this last year but after she broke her leg while ice sakting i thgouth she might not watn to do it again this year. But she’s back on her skates and enjoying it. We went twice this year, and i want to try to go as much as possible. Again a lot of fun gliding through the ice with S.

3.     Reading books to the girls. Bedtime ritual is 2 books each. If daddy is in town he reads two books to them and I read two, otherwise i read all four. They chose their own books and sometimes A chooses really baby books, but we don’t mind. Its fun to be babies again

4.     S reading a book to us. S reading has really improved and with some help she can read books now (not  novels, but simpler picture books such as Gruffalo etc). She loves to read them to A and me and we love to listen.

5.     Swimming with A. A has a red crab which she around her chest with which she can float easily. She has started kicking and moving her arms around a bit and ‘swimming’ from the middle of the pool to one side (breadth wise). She is super excited to do this and S also swims along with her. A loves to play in the baby paddle pool as well and can happily crawl along the edge, slide down the baby slide and play with her rubber  toys in the paddle pool

6.     Playing board games with the girls. We used to do this a lot before I started working but nowadays there is no time during the week, and the weekends it is either housework or some activity outside. Also need to update the board games we have-seem to be playing the same games for the last year!

7.     Ok this is not the hubby’s list but the things he enjoys doing with the girls are

a.     Showing them animals – in the last 6 months he has taken them to Zurich zoo, Hyderabad zoo and Montreux zoo, all without me. They love to see the animals with Daddy and he enjoys seeing the animals with them. They have many extinct animals books which only Daddy reads to them and they see stuff about animals on the IPad together.

b.     Drawing and painting with S. The hubby is much better at drawing and painting than me and the girls have realised this quite early. He is the go to for any request to draw a uinicorn, horse, flower etc. He quite enjoys it too and the latest project has been to teach S to draw a self portrait using some technique they learnt together from Youtube.

c.     Cooking with the girls. They often make muffins and cakes together and we need to find a children’s cookbook so they can make other stuff together as well.

d.     Science talk. The hubby loves to talk about planets, stars and other science stuff. He is much more into the Youtube stuff than me and is always showing them interesting stuff on it.

What i don’t enjoy so much

1.     The stress in the mornings. I seem to be getting up earlier everyday but we are still late for school and I am late for work. Most of the morning i seem to be shouting at the girls and getting super stressed. I’m not even enjoying the car ride to school as I’m always calculating whether I’m going to catch a particular train or not. I need to find a solution for this as it does not look like the girls are in any hurry to drink their milk, eat their breakfast etc etc

2.     A’s eating habits – She leaves most of the lunch I pack for her (though i try to give her all the things she likes) so I try to make sure she has a good breakfast and a good dinner. Breakfast is super stressed as I am always trying to rush them out of the house by 8 am. Dinner is getting worse and worse. A knows I’m desperate for her to eat something so I have to feed her, and she’s gone from sitting at her table to lying down on the sofa and waiting for me to fed her. I know I have to break this routine but I am so worried about her weight and her not eating anything.

3.     A’s sleeping habits. A still sleeps with us. She goes to sleep in her own bed, but when she waked up will cry and then i have to go and bring her to our bed. She also wants me to lie down with her or sit with her while she goes off to sleep, which nowadays is getting later and later. I put her in bed at 9:15 and she doesn’t sleep before 10! The kids take a loooong nap in school and though I’ve told the teacher many times to wake her up early i don’t think that is happening. So net net by the time I’m free to read a book/watch TV/chat with the hubby its aleady 10 pm and I’m yawning!