In August, we traveled to Rinnen, Austria for another farm holiday. Rinnen is just under 3 hours from our house. We have made it this far without allowing electronics on car rides...although I have wanted to give in a few times, we think it's good for our kids to enjoy trips the "old school" way. :)
We booked this trip using the www.farmholidays.com website again. We booked it very last minute and were happily surprised with how nice the farmhouse was! The rooms were a little outdated inside (and had kind of a funny smell--chalk it up to authentic farm vibe??) but the view could not be beat!! Click on any photo to enlarge it!
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| Farm house (our room on the top floor) |
We took a walk around the town of Rinnen on our first afternoon there. William quickly made a friend.
We wanted to walk down to a nearby gorge and waterfall, but we quickly discovered that the walk was not very stroller friendly, even with the BOB stroller.
I think Jim captioned the photo below, "Hiking with kids under 6 = new workout phenomenon!" I'm smiling in the photo, but man, it is not easy hiking around with kids. William was at that age where he didn't want to walk long distances but was ridiculously heavy to carry for very long.
We resigned ourselves to the fact that this was not a kid friendly hike and made our way back to the hotel. We enjoyed seeing all the gorge-ous trees even if we didn't make it to the gorge. ;-)
Just outside of the building where we stayed was a small area with a couple of swings, ping pong table, and a few skateboards and scooters, as well as a few bunnies!
This view made my heart happy, and the photo below is one of my all time favorites of our kids.
We booked a half pension board for the first time on this trip. This meant that our breakfast and dinner were included with our stay. Breakfast was served in the same building as our little apartment, but dinner was at the farm's restaurant just up the street. The dinners ended up being one of our favorite things about this trip!! The outside seating had a gorgeous view of the mountains. Each night we got to choose from 2 different appetizers, main courses, and desserts and every meal was delicious!! The kids liked the kids' meals, too! There was also a small kids' playroom inside the restaurant and a bouncy castle set up on the ground down below the restaurant. We met a German family with a 3 year old son there and ended up eating dinner with them a couple nights too.
I brought my knitting on this trip and enjoyed some quiet time working on a pumpkin hat for Lily on our balcony.
We loved our walks after dinner, and took a few family selfies to remember this beautiful town!
After the above pic, William kept turning around and making this face for the camera. I don't know where he gets it from.
Austria is one of my favorite places to visit. Yes, Germany and Switzerland are also stunning, but there is something so special about the mountains in Austria!! <3
Oh my, the view from your room!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Amazing!! I want to go there!! Did you do the animal stuff like your last farm visit (each kid "adopted" an animal)? It sounds like a great idea to get the breakfast and dinner included.
ReplyDeleteAnd you're right, hiking is soooo hard! Violet always says she wants to hike, she wants to walk, do it on her own, etc. but then gets tired and wants picked up. It's worse when we have the stroller for Dom, she gets jealous and wants to sit in there (maybe Drew was like that too?). We keep our hikes to about 1 mile these days :-) really just a long walk! haha
No, this farm only had bunnies and 2 donkeys. They also have a flock of sheep but they were grazing higher up on the mountain so we didn't see them. Yes, Drew used to like sitting on the front of the BOB too. We allowed it most of the time just to keep the peace. Eventually we had to tell him it wasn't allowed but I think he was five then!
DeleteI also commend you for keeping the cars screen-free! It's hard but we have too, so far, except for the one cross-country road trip we did when we rented a minivan with DVD player. I feel like I'm the only one of my friends here who doesn't pass an ipad or phone back to their kids in the back seat on every trip! Our next car will be a minivan that will have DVD and I think it will be hard to not give in and watch movies all the time....!
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