On vacation without the kids

First I would like to say thank you to B&T and A. Without them we wouldn't have been able to go on vacation without the kids. We went down to the Dominican Republic for 6 days and 5 nights. I bought a package online one day at work - sometimes I tend to buy things when I have had a bad day. Sometimes my shopping is very close to an addition.

It snowed the day before we left. We woke up at 3 AM to catch the first flight out. We had one connection and the whole thing was going very well. Then we arrived in DR. We had transportation taking us to the hotel so I looked for my name on a sheet of paper after we made it through customs. No name. We ask at info if they can help us, no dice. So I just say let's just get a taxi and eat the 30 or 40 dollars. We go to the cab stand tell them the name - no idea. So I get the sheet of paper out - never heard of it. Now the husband is thinking that this whole thing is a scam and we will be walking back into the terminal and we will be home before dinner. They figure out where the hotel is - yah! It will be $200 and it is 2 - 2.5 hours away! What! So we call the travel agent. She has no idea how this could have happened. She calls the hotel and the taxi stand calls the hotel. Finally the hotel says just take a cab and they will pay. We are flying down the highway and I thinking we will be there in an hour. Then we hit the mountains. Washed out roads, waiting for other cars to pass so that we can use the road, and very steep drop offs. Both of us are thinking this place better be great after all of this!

We arrive and it is. We have a 3-bedroom suite with a roof deck. We totally don't need all of that room but I am lovely it! So dinner, bottle of wine, and we are back at the room and I think I was in bed before 9!

We basically had the place to ourselves. I think maybe 20 other people were staying at the resort. When we were at the beach there was no up at 8 just to get a chair. You could sleep in, casually stroll to the beach and easily get a chair that wasn't by anyone else. And did I mention that no one ever used the pool so that was always an option. You could look up and down the beach and maybe see 10 people and not a single structure. It was odd. We kept looking for people, wondering what the deal was, why is no one here, etc. The hotel was under a little bit of construction so that was part of it and I don't think we were exactly in the hot part of DR. We talked with one couple that was there with their 3 kids. And that was pretty much our only interaction for the whole time.

I read 2.5 books, I slept until 10 every day, except when we planned something, and honestly I think I was in bed before 9 almost every night. I know a lot of people would say what did you do on your vacation? What was the point? And before kids I would have said the same thing. We planned something every day, if we didn't go out every night I felt like I was really missing out on things, etc.

It was so nice to wake up and then just lay in bed and drift in and out of sleep, not worry about feeding other people, only have to deal with putting sunblock on one person, read a book at the beach for hours, and not have to talk to or listen to someone talk for long periods of time.

When we left A said we need to see if my parents can do this again next year because this was great. I love my kids but I have to say that was the best couple of days I have had in quite awhile.