laratheescapeartist

In May we went to Center Parcs in De Haan, Belgium for the long weekend and it was quite possibly the worst holiday we’ve ever been on.

To start with I got the dates of our trip wrong, so we spent the entirety of Thursday morning packing up the car while the girls got steadily grouchier and grouchier, only to realise when I double checked our booking just as we were about to leave that it was for the 27th of May and not the 26th. So then we had to un-pack most of the car and deal with everyone’s tantrums about not being able to go to the beach that afternoon, only to then have to repack the car the next morning. Once we arrived on Friday Isabel started behaving strangely – biting and pushing her sister, bursting into tears at the smallest thing, and she spiked a fever that evening. Hugo came down with whatever she had and also felt feverish (though fortunately he didn’t start biting), so neither of them could go in the water park that was pretty much the raison d’etre for having a holiday at Centre Parcs. He did a covid test which was negative, and Sarah and I were well, so she and I had an hour on the water slides on the Saturday and Sunday (we didn’t want to spend too long as Hugo was struggling to look after Isabel whilst they were both ill) and we were both pretty happy about that (although not whilst on the wild water ride which was terrifying), but basically the only time in the three day holiday that everyone was happy at the same was for a ten minute period on a hired giant car/bicycle thing that we rode round the holiday park. By the time we got home on Monday Hugo and I were both absolutely exhausted from the non-stop packing/re-packing/un-packing and screaming children, and questioning the entire point of holidays.