Traveling with two small children is not for the faint of heart. I have to say, my children have been great little world travelers so far, with a lot of preparation and planning. Not only have they conquered very long International flights, but they now have many train rides, overnight stays in hotels and trips in the car under their belts. And the fact that we are still planning more trips means that we have all survived and are asking for more. It does actually take a lot of planning to leave the house for even a day with a toddler in tow, so 2 days or longer makes it a little more of a challenge. Since on an airplane you are limited to what you can take on board with you, planning is really crucial. For train rides, we have had to force ourselves to limit our luggage. In theory, you could probably take whatever you wanted on a train. In reality, you have to carry it or pull it behind and stuff it in a taxi when you get to your destination…and with two small children, a stroller, my husband’s camera bag and a diaper bag, this presents some unique challenges. You also need to have enough things along to entertain during the train ride, at the hotel or during breaks in the action. Since touring 'big and old historic things' is not always fun for small children, we have gotten really good at scouting out play areas, ice cream and swimming pools to mix it up a little. My husband and I, fortunately, seem to have traveling with our children down to a science after all this experience of traveling around England. I grab the toddler, the stroller and the diaper bag. He puts the camera bag on his back, pulls behind any luggage we have and Bean either holds on to the stroller or daddy’s hand. We have done this countless times now, getting on and off of trains quickly and walking around our site seeing cities. For Edinburgh, we are going for 3 nights, 4 days by train. I would like to try to fit all the clothes, sundries and gear needed in one large suitcase and find smallish things for the kids to do on a long train ride (3 hours one way) that will fit in the diaper bag. What makes this a little more difficult is the weather this time of year. In England and Scotland, the day starts out cold in the morning and ends cold in the evenings (could be down in the 40’s), but can get warmer during the day (possibly up to high 70’s). This means a lot of layers for each day. Yes, I love a good challenge. I am sure the day will come where we have a bad trip or I forget to pack something crucial, but so far, so good. We are also going to try to make it to the monkey forest this weekend. The girls are so excited! (The picture above is them playing dress up this morning before school, the bottom pictures are from our last two hotel stays).
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