Going away (almost) every school holiday?

The reason I want to go away with my GC , on my own next Easter break is because I want to do a completely child centered holiday while they are still little. I'm going to Pirates village, Santa Ponsa. In eighteen months my eldest GC will be out of the age range. Read the threads on holidays with teens and you can see why people make the most of the primary years. I also do a Christmas Eve panto for that reason. You don't get this time back.

Obviously there's a huge variety in what people can afford.

Its most noticeable where we live that in junior school the families with two earners both in high paid careers are coming out of the childcare cost years and suddenly have a lot of disposable income. These are the families now going off to Zermatt or barbados in february, val de lobo, crete or cyprus in May, st Ives in august. Often extra weekends on top.

I don't know why you have quoted me and made that comment. It' comes over as very unpleasant.
You don't need to spell it out we weren't as well off as other people.: Of course people who have more money can afford to do what they want and can provide music lessons , sports equipment etc as well as go on holidays. That's obvious. Although actually among DS's school friends none of them did have piano lessons and none of them owned a piano..
I was talking about what was important to us as a family. That holidays weren't that our priority and actually one per year was sufficient for us. Why you feel the need to comment on our financial situation I don't understand.

We do this, travel at Christmas, Easter, May and in summer (often twice in summer). Our jobs are flexible and there are times where we work very hard, evening and weekends, but no one is counting days of leave. It's one of the privileges of an otherwise underpaid job (academia).

We have family abroad, as do about 1/3 of kids in the uk today. So a lot of travel is to do with that.

I think you might have misread my post - I said we do more cheaper trips rather than 5* AI

Oh and it would be pretty rare to have kids off school a full week with a sick bug and separately.

My DC between them this year missed 3 days of school. One for a minor surgical procedure, one due to a vomiting bug on a friday, each had a half day sent home with fever but were back the next day. I didn't use annual leave either half day, they watched tv while i finished work as I'd only an hour and a half left.

Dh and i each used one day of annual leave covering kids sickness.

We get 6 weeks each annual leave a year, plus bank holidays. We are away for 4 weeks but due to when bank holiday fall its usually only just over 3 weeks worth of annual leave, which leaves 3 weeks each for time at home over Christmas etc.

You have to be rich to keep going away five star inclusives. You are obviously well off.

Christ not this again! Can you afford Heinz baked beans? 😂

We live in a well off area. Quite a few families (say, half the class) seem to do 3 trips a year, it might be something like:

• feb: skiing or winter sun
• easter OR spring bank OR October - european sun somewhere thats warmer than uk, greece, spain, malta etc, or city breaks. Occasionally a destination like the US, Canada or Australia, especially if there are family to visit.
• august - actually often UK or northern europe. Nice parts of devon/cornwall/dorset. Jersey/guernsey, isle of wight. The Irish coast, scottish islands, scandinavia, switzerland or German lakes.

Having just said on the holiday thread that 3 days anywhere is enough for me I must say when my kids were primary / early secondary ages we went away every holiday because it was easier than trying to entertain them at home .

I wouldn’t say you were moaning either but I do find these posts quite naive

Obviously other people have different priorities, likes, dislikes, jobs, wages, etc than others

You said you were baffled as to how and why others would go abroad more than once a year, your judgey mum friend questioned why you don’t go away more than once a year.

You are both as bad as each other. It doesn’t matter what others choose to do or not to do with their time and money

I think this is a weird question. You went abroad at Easter? And are feeling hard done by you can't go abroad again? You are better off than many. We went abroad twice in my children's childhood, both by coach, both to Europe. Apart from that we camped a lot, by public transport- and we visited relatives a lot. So we were probably away 3 -4 times a year. But add all our journeys up and money spent travelling in three years probably wouldn't touch the cost of your trip at Easter.

Stop moaning- if you want more time away with your children, do cheaper things. And count your blessings

We know quite a few families who spend the whole summer holidays back in their home countries, and have a country home in the U K so they spend a lot of weekends and school holidays there. DCs are at a London prep so quite an affluent group.

We go away about 5 times a year, but some are just UK theme park breaks for a few days. We could afford to go abroad more often but my dcs love theme parks so we are working our way through the UK ones. I find it quite tiring to travel with kids too, and need some time to just relax at home during school holidays. Also love doing days out in London and my dcs love doing activity camps so they wouldn't want to miss out by going on holiday every school holidays.

You're possibly don't realise but you're coming across as quite defensive about your circumstances. It might be worth exploring why. You say you asked for opinions and the consensus is that other people have more disposable time and money and have the option of different choices that you currently don't have.

It’s definitely not usual to go away every holiday - you must mix with some very affluent people OP.

It's not odd.. But then taking kids away every holiday isn't odd either. It's just different priorities. I live by the motto - you do you

The mum was just making inane polite chit chat, holidays in the summer is pretty standard.

My kid is a few years away from school but we will be those people. We have very generous annual leave and love holidays. I'm also an immigrant and have relatives in some European holiday destinations and we go see them too, but random school mums wouldn't know that, they'd just hear "we're going to Mallorca for a week in October".

Well you said one holiday in your opening post and it was more about being surprised that people had more than one holiday. People who can afford more generally go or at at peace with not going abroad at all and don't generally open discussions about it.

And regarding annual leave, when people earn more, they have more leave as well. They don't have to 'keep some back' for just in case...... they have more flexibility and work longer hours when and if needed and when they 'need' time, they can take it as there is goodwill on both sides.

It sounds like your circumstances are different to others. Not necessarily worse. just different.

If 1 holiday abroad is plenty for you then that’s that

For some people 1 holiday abroad is more than they’d want to do / be able to do

for some people 1 holiday abroad wouldn’t be enough

do you and ignore opinions

Also -holidays were always a priority for me before I became a parent - every day of annual leave was spent abroad and I'd buy extra annual leave too. I love travelling, it's my main hobby .

We go away every school holiday - I'm lucky to be in a good financial position , and to have 16 weeks off each year (DD is at an independent school) but it is a priority as well.

My happiest childhood memories are of family holidays, and I lost a parent in my twenties so was very glad of the holidays we spent together.

Our holidays aren't individually expensive - mostly European eurocamps/ theme parks/UK breaks but they are a priority.

DD is in an independent school and I'm old and so mortgage free, which is how I can afford it. Just one child makes it much cheaper as we can share 1 hotel room too and I book a year in advance.