Travel: Our Roadtrip & Vlog

The week before last week we went on a UK road trip… I hate the term ‘staycation’ but I guess that’s what it was! Six nights away from home,  three individual nights in different hotels on the way up north and then 3 nights in a hotel in the village where my dad lives on the Cumbrian coast in the Lake District. I’ve put together a little holiday vlog, mostly for us to look back on but I thought I might as well share it too, that’s at the end of this post and along with it I thought I’d share some snippets and photos too.

Here’s what happened on our holiday…

• Athena asked where we were going approximately three hundred times over the course of the week. Evenif she’s just asked it a split second ago.
• We listed to a lot of podcasts in the car (Answer me This and ‘No such thing as a fish’ mostly!) oh, and some Fleetwood Mac, always good driving tunes!
• Arlo fell in love with trains,  tractors, lorries and said ‘wow wow wow’ whenever he saw any of them,  which was a lot!
• We discovered Athena is a bit of a thrill seeker,  she loved the rides at Drayton Manor loads and was sad she was too small to go on the big ones! I however remembered that I’m not a huge fan of the insane rides once I was strapped in and ready to go! I still went on a couple more though…
• Got pestered by a bunch of wasps when we were trying to get in the car… obviously there was something sweet in the car and every time we got one out another would fly in. We must’ve looked like a bunch of absolute loons slamming doors and waving things around trying to entice them away!
• Ate way too many ice creams!
• Rode on Thomas the Tank Engine (at Drayton Manor) and a proper steam train,  plus saw lots of trams in Blackpool too. It was a very traincentric holiday!
• When we were leaving Athena said she didn’t want to go away and when were heading home said she wanted to stay on holiday!
• Visited Kendal Castle
• Had one sleepless hotel night then five surprisingly good ones after that,  despite staying in four different hotels. I think the first night was just too exciting for Athena so she woke in the night and wanted to chat to us all. Plus we had pushed two single beds up against the king size one and Arlo kept crawling over to her in his sleep!
• Drove over one of the steepest roads in the UK, hardknott pass in the Lake District,  full of hairpin bends and steep drops but with some wonderful views!
• Only one kid was car sick, and that was Athena on the way home on the last day!
• We loved the illuminations in Blackpool, in fact we loved all the cheesiness of Blackpool! We spent an hour or so in one of the arcades and won reams of tickets… enough for two tiny little sea creature toys! What a jip!
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• There was a lot of stomping around the woods, the forestry commission sites are wonderful, with stick man trails and lots of activities for kids. We visited Whinlatter forest and Cannock Chase. Whinlatter was by far the best!  

We really did have a great time, originally I had wanted to go abroad for an all inclusive holiday but actually I think with the kids still being this young i’d not have been able to relax around the pool or at the beach properly and we might have struggled to keep them entertained. I planned this trip round them mostly, i’ll admit but we all had a great time and the kids experienced so many different things. I think we’ll hold off on the all inclusive resort holidays for a few more years until they’d both be happy in the kids club!

Here’s our vlog, it’s the first I’ve done so don’t expect too much!