Would I be bonkers to take the DC to NZ for only 2 weeks?

[BikeRunSki]

My DBro will be working in New Zealand from Sept 2016 to May 2017. I'd love to go and see him, but the only time we could go would be school holidays, so either 2 weeks at Christmas or 2 weeks at Easter.

The DC will be 5 and 8, would we be crazy to go down under for such a short time? I've thinking that they'll need to to adjust to jet lag at each end, especially on the way home before they go back to school.

This is before I've thought about the expense....

Maybe a little crazy for 2 weeks. I'd probably rule Christmas out as a time to go as flights to Australia and NZ are very expensive in December, unless you fly out Christmas Day or Boxing Day. So you'd probably only be left with a week there. With the time difference and distance you're looking at 24 hours + of travelling each day.

Sorry, posted too early. Where in NZ would you be going to? I'd probably still try and go. I've done North and South Island, and loved both

Nearest sizeable town is Wellington I think.

I suspect I won't quite have the guts to spend my life savings on a potentially very stressful journey and quick turn around. The New Zealander I work with never goes back for less than 3 weeks, but his DC are not yet school age.

Any chance your dc's school would let them take an extra week off?

Absolutely no way!! Our headteacher is fine-tastic and very down on term time holidays, including a child who recently had a week off to go to the Somme Memorial and visit his great grandfather's grave.

Term time holidays would also leave us with difficulties in covering holiday time holidays too.

We took our 11 mo to NZ for 10 days. My cousins were getting married and our choice was either go for 10 days or don't go at all. It is a long way, and DD howled when we got on the 3rd plane, but we made the most of our time there.

We found we had jet lag when we got there, but none once we got home.

We lived in NZ for 5 years and I think we managed to tour the South Island in about 2 weeks ( South Island would be pretty accessible from Wellington as just a ferry ride across the water). I think you'd need to have a clear plan of what you wanted to do and see. There are lovely places to visit on North Island too. You'd also need to take account that with young kids you would probably need to stop over somewhere each way to break up a 24 hour journey. I have been thinking about taking my 4 teenagers ( the eldest 2 were born in NZ) but not sure if there would be enough to interest them and it would need to be 3 weeks and hard to fit in during important exam years. You could possibly do the upper half of south Island, whale watching in Kaikoura. the Abel Tasmin national park etc. It really depends what you want to do there.