Summer holiday – you were amazing, but now we’re done with you. We glamorously celebrated your last week, we’ve pulled out all the stops. It was time to say our farewells. Goodbye summer holiday, hello first day of school!

Two months

In Belgium, the children have two whole months of summer holiday. The holiday starts on the 1st of July and ends on the 31st of August. That is quite a long time. Not only for the parents, who have to occupy the kids for 9 weeks and/or arrange out-of-school care. Staying home from work for 9 weeks is no option for most of us.

But also for the kids, those 9 weeks can be too long, especially for the younger ones. Though I have to day that this year, summer holiday just flew past. De boys have had a great time at home and at the out-of-school care, they’ve been on summer camp for almost a week and we had two weeks of family vacation.

Enough is enough

But the last two weeks, you could feel that it’s been enough. They missed their friends, they were looking forward to go back to school and boredom started to take over. The often shitty weather didn’t help either. And they started to annoy each other. The level of irritation was rising, the fuses got shorter.

Taking a couple of days off

I had already planned to take the last day off (Thursday is one of my working days), but I decided last minute to take the whole week off. Have some extra quality time with the boys, before they had to get back to school. And rightly so, ’cause we also had the best weather ever! Alright, let’s simply forget the end of Wednesday afternoon, with enormous downpours, wet clothes and sodden sneakers.

A picture says more than a thousand words

We’ve done a lot of fun stuff during that last week. Now I can tell elaborate stories about it, but I’ll just let the pictures speak for themselves.

Monday, 30°C, off to the beach!

Tuesday, we’ve even had 32°C. Sam went on a play date with his best friend, and Noah and I? We went to a playground (De Bosuil) wíth a paddling pool. So nice if it’s that hot outside.

Wednesday, still summer temperatures, ca. 25°C, but cloudy and a shower once in a while. Had a fabulous day at the Olmense Zoo.

Thursday, a bit unstable weather, but still nice. First, we did groceries, had sushi for lunch (daddy jealous), and went for ice cream at the Ijshoeve.

Finally, 1st of September

They day, the boys have been waiting for for weeks: the first day of school. They jumped out of bed, but during breakfast, the nerves got the better of them. Although they didn’t want to admit it, but each ate 1 tiny sandwich and that is not what these usually very good eaters have for breakfast ;-). But finally they went off to school, full of enthusiasm, and with their new schoolbags.

It has been an awesome holiday. But now it’s time for some routine and structure. And doing the groceries all by myself again (hallelujah!).

Thank you for reading!