Grand-papa & Pata's visit

Well, we are back from Rhodes (click here for pics) and we thoroughly enjoyed Grand-papa & Pata's visit. Let's hope next time we manage to combine the two; a holiday trip and their visit!!!

Here are some pics:

William banging away on one of his birthday presents

 Stopping in the shade during a walk in Varibombi

 visiting the Acropolis

 Emma and Grand-papa cooling down in the pool

 Pata and the kids chilling in front of some cartoons...

 at the park, trying out the see-saw

First hols of the year...

After a lovely long week-end visit from our youngest Grand-parents for Catholic Easter we are now heading off to Vienna for a short week with the kids.

the four of them testing our new sand-bench

Emma and Pata taking a break in the shade at the bicycle park

It was great; I loved watching the kids enjoy every second of having their grand-parents here - I wish it was something that expat life allowed more of - and the change of schedule to the sunny summer rhythm with drinks, food, restaurants, beach walks, bike rides and visits to the touristy side of Athens means we got an early start to our first holidays (this year) too.

I cannot believe it has been 6 months since we left Vienna. I am eager to be there again, to walk down its streets, taste the food at our habitual market, a coffee at our usual coffee shops and see familiar faces. I am also interested to see how it makes us feel vis à vis to living in Greece. Will we feel saddened? or on the contrary will our visits highlight the positive sides to our life here now ? or both? 

I am glad we stuck to our expat rule of plunging into the new life for the first six months but now I am eager to catch the plane and go. 

I am also eager to see how traveling and staying in a hotel goes with nearly 5 year old Emma and nearly 2 year old William (his last flights without a seat!) ... after a week-end stint to Budapest with a nearly 2 year old Emma we totally dropped the idea as it was far more exhausting and frustrating than staying home!

More soon...

Family visit

We had a wonderful family week-end with Grand-papa & Pata's visit.

It was perfect! We all had some family time, play time, they had some shopping time and we met some friends, in fact even the capricious weather cooperated to a tee and we had sunny days in the park and garden and were able to eat outside at the market on Saturday. The only cloud in our sky was poor William's stomach still not functioning smoothly and hence we are still sleepy.

Emma loved having her grand-parents here to play and talk and her recently "Germanified" French even came out from a drawer in her head.

It's sometimes hard living away from family as an expat - especially when you have (and for the) kids, but it makes occasional week-ends even more special.

For pics of their visit please click here