Traveling with kids

We went to Ukraine recently and visited friends for two weeks. It was a very nice time to stay with them. Although we only met once before, we felt very connected. They were couch-surfers two years ago and stayed only view days at our home. We kept contact, decided to meet again and so Ukraine was our first destination within this one year of traveling we plant for 2021. Of course, it got a little complicated to travel because of the Coronavirus, but we made it all the way from Judenburg (Austria) to Rivne. And our Kids were great! They are ten and twelve years now and like to read a lot. Our boy likes video games and riding his bike and our girl loves younger kids to play with and Manga-Books. They are also very flighty with each other, although they are best friends generally. My kids like to stay at home. They love our house and to visit their grandparents, play in the garden and with each other, but they are also interested in the world. What made me very proud was their ability to adapt to new situations.

We traveled for ten days until we reached our friends. That included a lot of driving hours with the car and many places where we slept, lived, ate and saw new things. The kids were interested and open to all the new things. Just with food, they can be very picky and it turned out to be a little challenge NOT to go to every McDonalds we passed.

When we lived with our friends, we had mattresses on the floor and there were also two shy cats living in the small flat. We are not used to live with pets in the house, but the kids were so nice with them. They got friends in a carefully and slow way.

We do not speak Ukrainian and I have no clue from the alphabet they use, and only one of our friends knows some German. So we spoke English all the time. And guess what! The kids still felt comfort. At the end of our visit they spoke in a crazy way, with hands and feet and a lot of mixed up words, bad grammar and a funny German-English, that is calls “Denglisch” (from Deutsch-Englisch). But they were fine. Both of them could say what was necessary, they understood our talks and even jokes.This may be a simple story, and my English is also “not the yellow from the egg” as we say to make a joke about Denglisch, but I was really very impressed by my kids.

I wanted to share this experience with traveling and maybe encourage you to travel with your kids, although it might seem difficult. It is worth to try it, and maybe you will get surprised too.