Our Easter and Mid-Term holiday break

Hope you all had a great Easter and Mid-Term break! 

Ours have been a joyful mix of over-indulgent of chocolate, eggs and plenty of great quality time spent with the kids.

After two crazy months of getting the business ready to launch and the Webshop up and running, I am glad that the school holiday is here again. Beside getting to take sometime off from work (flexible working hours, an advantage for being self-employed ;-), it also means, a short break for Taxi-mama job, less cooking and more sleep for me, yippie! 

I wrote about the wonderful performance of the Apassionata show we saw in Basel recently, “The Golden Trail”, and how my two girls have been wishing for a pony or two around the garden (of which my answer happened to be a “no”). Well, instead I promised them a chance to experience how it is like to look after these ponies by arranging something special for them at a small ponyhof down the village. Though I thought a visit to the “Kinderzoo” Knie at Rapperswil would also be great start for the holiday now that we got the sunshine back (it kind of disappeared from Switzerland for a while prior this).I love this zoo, so did the girls. They had great fun feeding the animals, watching the sea lions doing their little tricks and getting to ride the ponies. I especially like the new Thai restaurant here. The food was good and the staff were really friendly.

Our next stop was a much participated trip to the “Naturama” museum in Aarau. To celebrate Easter, Naturama have arranged special opportunities for kids to visit and hold newborn chicks and cute little bunnies for that weekend. Again, more fun with egg hunting and eating the chocolate eggs they won.

Finally the moment they’ve long been waiting for, days out in the ponyhof (a small pony farm). The girls get to spend two whole days helping out, feed, clean, train the ponies and ride them. It was, as according to my girls, an unforgettable experience that they would love to do again, and again. “Mummy, this is the best holiday ever, Thank you!” Ah… and it's not even yet half-way through the school break, you already melt mummy’s heart! Having heard sayings like this only make me feel like spoiling them even more!!! Control yourself mum...!

Well, the fun didn’t just stop there at the “Ponyhof” (and the girls already knew it). I have also been promising them for a day trip to Europa Park (Rust, Germany). Exactly around this same time last year that we were invited by the grandparents for a weekend in Europa Park. I was surprised by how close we actually are to this great amusement park (less than two hours drive), so, kids packed, food packed, Europa Park here we come.

As if all that wild rides and big splashes at Europa Park wasn’t enough, the following Sunday was happened to be Thai Songkran festival, or better known as the Water Festival for the European. The day is also a special day for my younger daughter Leila. It’s the first time she gets to take part for the Thai classical dance. We were also very lucky with the weather, Leila, Natalie and I were soaking wet by the end of that afternoon!

No school holidays would be completed without a visit to the grandparents for my girls. So, up direction Toggenburg mountains we drove. We later spent a relaxing afternoon with the grandparent strolling through a bit of the countryside. There were plenty of pretty little “Schneeglöckchen” or “snowbell” (Galanthus) flowers to be found everywhere along the way. Some patches of old snow were also still to be found, enough for the girls to have some good snow ball fight.

Strangely it also felt as though I came here to officially say goodbye to Winter and hello to Spring, especially after having to bring back the skis and ski boots which I’ve rented for the girls in a local sport store here. Ah snow, I won’t be missing you until next skiing season!

On the next day I decided to take the girls to join some friends and made a spontaneous visit to Mainau, Bodensee (Germany) before heading back home. Mainau is absolutely stunning at the moment especially with all the colorful spring flowers blooming. Besides the creative flower gardens, castle and more ponies, the huge playground with mini punting boats here definitely have left a very good impression on the girls to make them want to come back :-)

We spent the last couple of days lazing around the house and the garden before the school start and before mummy (me) gets back to her usual 16 hours a day of work. There are packages sitting around, waiting to be unpacked and sorted. Emails, letters, correspondences, contracts and bills, all have made their arrivals as well. The nice thing to know about these stuff is the fact that, they will always be there, waiting for me too.

I’m recharged, refreshed and the next holiday is planned and booked. Life is beautiful. I’m now ready for anything - Hello work!