TLDR – xmas market road trip to Waterford – Cut short due to Sick kids and a meh cottage experience.
Getting on the Road
Michelle is always on the lookout for some adventure. To fill her need and provide something for us to do she rented us a random 7 passenger car for 40€ for three nights and booked us 2 nights near Waterford. During summer the same car is 80€ a night – mutter, demand-based pricing sure is annoying. The car pickup is about 50 minutes on a bike or 70 minutes on LUAS. Not sure if the bike will fit in the car so I’m taking the LUAS to pick up the car. Hoping I can take a bike returning the car. The kids packed last night (Thursday) after dinner. Packing in a car we have so much room for stuff. It’s exciting to randomly toss things in just In case vs air travel where we have to justify everything we pack
Mila woke up about 2300 last night having puked all over her self. She came down to Michelle and I crying saying her hair was covered then vomited some more. Michelle slept with her upstairs in our bed holding her hair overnight while I stayed on the couch. Friday morning Mila cried feeling sick then cried some more because she was going to miss school. She really wanted to go to school; poor princess.
By the time we were ready to depart Mila was mostly back to normal, 80% on energy level and no more vomit. About 10 minutes into the car ride Khaleesi came down the same way Mila did and started to vomit in the car. She did not stop during the car ride. Khaleesi does not care much about vomiting. Every third time she does not get the bucket at all and just vomits on herself? Come on girl contain that stuff. We made one stop on the way at a Tesco Extra to pick up food for the weekend and stretch our legs. Low on energy Mila and Khaleesi rode in the cart while we shopped. Roxi and Maddex ran around like wild monkeys minus the poo tossing.
We made it to Croan Cottages
We’re staying at a place called Croan Cottages a bit in the middle of nowhere. They have the main house and a number of 2-3 bedroom cottages; we’re in Cottage number five. From their paper work it appears they target stag and hen and wedding parties. It’s on a working farm, the kids saw some random animals running around the property. It’s a gorgeous property that would be nice to explore if it was not raining. We arrived at an open cottage and no greeting. We called to check in and never had a callback. Strike one.
The adverts for the place say internet. In the cottage there is no internet and no cell reception. Which is ok if we plan for it, but we did not plan for it, as the listing clearly stated internet. I went outside and texted the owner asking Whats up with the internets. Text using Edge reception, because that was the best I could find. – Much like the phone call we never heard back from him. Netflix or plex access would be nice with sick kids who did not want to do anything in a coldish Cottage. The furnace controller is in a locked room we had no access too. Heat shut off about midnight and did not come back on until 8am – it was cold when we arrived and colder in the morning. – You get the idea we were not happy with the place?
All checked in Khaleesi and Mila are snuggled on a love seat right now watching RTE cartoons. Mila is eating some crackers. Khaleesi will drink some water then vomit it up. Roxi is full of energy all over the house. Maddex is fine sitting in a chair relaxing. Well, fine other than sounding like he has the croop with a mild barking cough. Great weekend for a road trip !! Three sick kids, no internet access, no heat control and 3 channels on the TV- we managed to work it out and have some fun. I went war walking around the neighborhood and found reception enough to download a kindle book to read and the kids found a kids show until 2000 when RTE Jr shut off until 0700 am.
Khaleesi does not understand gravity or fluid dynamics. At one point she was laying down on her back with a puck bucket set to pour onto her face and vomited upwards into the bucket. Lucky for her I understand the gravity and noticed what she was doing, and I was able to turn her sideways before she vomited on her face. The poor girl is just out of energy not feeling comfortable at all.
Checking out Heading to Waterford
The morning was cold, and rainy. The morning for Michelle started in the middle of the night. Once Khaleesi stoped vomited. Roxi got up gag coughing. Thinking she was going to start vomiting Michelle ended up upstairs with Roxi and I kept an ear out for Khaleesi. Khaleesi and I woke up around 0400 am and snuggled up on the couch in the freezing and entertained ourselves with Euronews, the only thing on. There was some stabbing fake bomb wearing terrorist in London who was stopped by a guy with a fire extinguisher and another guy with a 5-foot long narwhal tusk; Yes a narwhal tusk.
A few hours later everyone else woke up, we ate, packed and took off. Still no word from the owner of the place. We’ve decided we’re not staying for another night we are going to head home tonight. We checked in and checked out without talking to him at all. Next stop Waterford to check out their Xmas Market. Well, the next stop was Waterford to kill a few hours before the Xmas Market opened at noon. We start much earlier then most people. We parked on the waterfront, almost the same place we parked last time we were in Waterford. – I sure don’t miss driving a car or find places to park with a car.
First stop was the mall to kill some time and walk in the warm, then we browsed some hiking shops with Black Friday sales. We didn’t find anything we needed, no matter how hard we looked. After walking around the town for a bit we stopped at McDonald for lunch, toilet, and a warm-up. From lunch we checked out the Xmas Market – it was Meh. and even afternoon, it was suposed to open at noon, it was not all set up and open. We did see a hotdog stand that would have been much better than Mcdonalds; oh well.
Khaleesi did a great job walking around the city in the cold being sick, but she could only make it so far. We turned in back at the car for the drive home. One-stop at another Tesco for some ice cream then we carried on home. We cut the trip short, but we still managed to have a good time. Khaleesi managed to vomit on herself a few more times on the way home. The girl does not care enough to use a puke bucket – come on.
The rest of the pictures
