Our summer holiday didn't quite go to plan this year. We didn't have the hot weather, white beaches, poolside sun lounges holiday we had planned for. But instead had something I think was far better - a staycation in the heart of the beautiful Wiltshire woods. There was no sunbathing, no lounging about, no white beaches, instead was the beautiful scenery, the wildlife, and the great British outdoors.
We had booked a week at the start of the school holidays to Tunisia. As you can imagine, with all the terrible events that happened in Sousse, it was understandably cancelled - we looked at changing destination, but due to costs, and the fact that hubby and I lost all the enthusiasm to going abroad, we decided to do a staycation.
So we ended up putting the money in the house, decorating both the boys room and we booked a nice week in Center Parcs. Unfortunately, our teenage son didn't want to come with us, he wanted to stay home - my step-daughter and her partner were looking after the house and the dogs anyhow, so he stayed home with them.
We had an amazing time (apart from missing my oldest), the kids loved it which is what was the main thing. As long as they are happy I am happy.
We spent most the days walking and swimming.
We had planned to do loads around Wilshire etc. to visit many tourist locations, but Center Parcs kept us fully occupied, and we only ventured out on one day.
Of course we couldn't have left without visiting Longleat Safire Park - after years of wanting to visit, we got to finally go. And, it was as amazing as I wanted it to be. Nothing like I expected, but still amazing. We were so impressed we will definitely be returning, hopefully, next year.
As we were checking into our villa, I looked out the window and spotted two deers. The kids loved it, the deers were relaxing near our lodge and we watched them for a couple of hours - one even came right near our window and grazed.
We spent hours walking, we went out in the morning and didn't return to the villa until late in the evening most days - Longleat Center Parcs is very hilly, so we got lots of exercise. There was a land train, but the kids preferred to walk.
During our walks each day we would we visited the many different play parks.
The kids love crazy golf, and we spent a good hour trying to master the indoors crazy golf - Summer got a bit bored..
We loved the woodlands walks.
Lewis completed the indoor wall climbing, he found it very challenging, but thoroughly enjoyed it - I was really proud of him as normally he doesn't like to do anything that involves heights etc. Jacob, decided not to do it himself, but he said next time he will.
We couldn't leave our villa without having a BBQ, even under an umbrella - in the typical British 'August' weather, of course, it rained.
