Dublin Airport, shortly before 10am… we approached our boarding gates.
The last time my wife, Cat, and I were on a plane together was August 2013 – on our way back from a babymoon to Sweden. Less than two years later and we were flying as a family of four.
Caitlin, all 20 months of her, was up the front of the double-buggy while her younger brother, Patrick, seven months, chilled out in the back.
Queues for the flight – Dublin to Biarritz – snaked around the corner but we had two trump cards. To the left of the regular folks was a clear route for families. ‘This,’ I thought, ‘is a huge perk to parenthood.’
We turned the corner to find 25 other families with their own babies and prams. Skipping one queue to join another.
Once we were on the plane, it all kicked off. Neither child was too content at the prospect of hanging out in close, sweaty quarters for two hours.
The Irish Times front page was proving prophetic.
Luckily, with a little help from bottles of milk and Peppa Pig downloaded to my phone, we sated the pair and were in good spirits upon landing in France. Unluckily it was raining. A sprint to Arrivals and a fun rental car jaunt to Getaria, Spain just over 90 minutes away.
We selected a small town, 20 minutes from San Sebastian but with a busy main street and a couple of beaches. Ten days in a big city was not too appealing but the highly recommended San Sebastian was not too far away, if Getaria proved to be a drab affair.
It was not. We loved just about every minute of it.
Most of those unenjoyable minutes came over the first two days as we struggled to get into a routine. Our first full day saw us slow to rise, slower to get out of our apartment and a trip to a supermarket in the next town as the height of our adventures.
Afternoon naps for the children often saw us stuck in the apartment from 2-5pm.
We eventually got our act together with three relatively simple moves:
- Pack bags and make plans the night before.
- Take a child each in the morning.
- Each parent gets one hour away from the apartment each day (for sanity’s sake).
We were well into the swing of things by Day Three. We decided to limit our travels away to Getaria to two trips – San Sebastian and Bilbao (intriguing city). No point overextending ourselves or spending too much of it in a car.
On a couple of weekend evenings, after getting the children down for naps from 6-8pm, we went out for late dinners. I felt guilty as hell, in one restaurant, ruining the romantic meals nearby with our coaxings, scoldings, laughing and yapping.
I felt better, though, when other families showed up and were equally noisy. Safety in numbers.
We were lucky to catch a local, Basque event – San Juan Festival. It was there that we mingled with locals, enjoyed Spanish radlers (beer with lemon), realised Basque and Traditional Irish music were similar and marvelled in our daughters dancing skills.
Most evenings, though, were spent on our balcony (with views of other balconies and a thin wedge of sea). To find a spot we liked, we’d had to choose balcony over lift. Four flights up, we made the right choice.
Ten days was a perfect amount of time for the break – long enough to get into a great, relaxed rhythm without stretching too long. We all left Spain on friendly terms, ready to join the queues for queues to get home.
Patrick is a Dubliner, now residing in the shiny buckle of the commuter belt (Sallins, Co Kildare). He is gainfully employed to watch matches and file copy for SportsJOE.ie. He has written and produced three plays and is working on a book about the first generation of Irish rugby players. Both he and his wife are happy with two children until, at least, the 2018 World Cup comes around.
