Thanks to everyone who offered advice (and clothing - thanks Essbee ) prior to our ski trip last week. For those of you who like "closure" (horrible word!) on these boards, thought I'd better 'report back' !
Basically we had a fab time - went to Austria with Esprit. Had fresh snow in the first 2 days and then sunshine, so the conditions were great.
The childcare was fab, and DS2 loved the nursery nannies, and DS1 (4) enjoyed the snow club, but didn't really seem to make that much progress on the skiing front this year. His ski teacher said he has the potential to be good, but described him as 'giving up too easily', which disappointed us a bit, since we've seen this in other things (e.g. swimming) too. We took him out on his skis on a couple of occasions too, and he just kept flopping down, saying "I can't do it..." (How can we motivate him to keep trying a bit harder? another thread in it's own right I suspect....)
Anyway, we also had some other interesting families in the same chalet and had some good evening chats over dinner. Found it fascinating to compare parenting attitudes and styles over the course of the week!
So, back now, tanned and with a mountain of laundry, but it was definitely worth it!