European Spring Break

We decided to go for Europe for our Spring break back in March. There were a couple big factors that played into this decision. First, we really liked the idea of doing a trial run of going to a bunch of different places to practice for our Round the World (RTW) trip. Second, we really love Paris and I liked the idea of going to some new places. And lastly, I found and airfare deal that got us to Europe for around $600 per person. So we were on our way! The Euro was fairly low against the US Dollar so that also really helped. We put the plan in motion. 10 days in total, 3 in Brussels, 2 in Amsterdam, 5 in Paris, and then back to Brussels for the flight home. We thought this was a good itinerary for us for a number of reasons.

1. It let me put a budget together similar to what we would need to do on our RTW trip and see if we could stick to it. These places would be representative of some of the more expensive places we would go on our trip. It would help us test out our budget and give me some valuable feedback for planning
2. It let us test ourselves and the kids about moving through Europe every couple days. Would the pace be too much? What kind of pace do we need to plan for our RTW trip?
3. It would help prep the boys about what it would be like once we got to our RTW trip.
4. Exposing the kids to culture is always good thing.

The fare that I found was from MIA to BRU via JFK. I wasn’t thrilled about a layover, but it was reasonable. So we left our house around 9am on Thursday. We took the tri-rail down to the MIA airport and at $5 a person vs dealing with Miami traffic, it is a deal! We were there in plenty of time for our flight to JFK and we left just after noon, pretty much on time. We landed in JFK around 3 and prepped for our 7pm flight to Brussels. We had checked our luggage through, a carry-on size rolling suitcase and a 28″ suitcase.  So we had a backpack to take care of on the layover.  While we were waiting for our flight, we charged all the kids gadgets, and our own. We ate burgers and drank milkshakes from Shake Shack for dinner. And while everyone else was chilling out, I was on the phone with my bank trying to get my PIN reset for my ATM card!  No pressure… 🙂

The plane was a 2-3-2 seat configuration for the flight from JFK to BRU. I had booked us in the aisle seats of the 3 section towards the back of the plane, leaving the middle seat open. I was hoping that if the flight was a bit empty, the kids would have the extra room to stretch out and sleep. We got lucky on one sets of the seats and not the other. But we had a lovely woman from Bruges in the row with me and my younger son. We obviously gave her one of the aisle seats and moved my younger son to the middle seat. She was very sweet and she actually pulled his feet on to her lap when he cuddled up to go to sleep so he could stretch out more! She also gave us advice on where to get the best chocolate in Bruges (more on this in the next post).