We’re starting to think about summer vacation plans and trying to figure out how Olof should schedule his four weeks off. We’ve told the kids that we’ll all go down to Uppsala after school gets out and spend a couple of days seeing the sights. I think we’ll drive — with plenty of stops along the way — so that will take about a week, all told. Later, near the end of the summer, we’re going to rent a cabin for a few days, like we usually do when my mom’s here, so he’ll probably take a week off then, as well.

It’s fun to have plans and to see new things, but my favorite thing to do on vacation is to stay at home and relax, and I don’t want to schedule so many days away that we miss the chance to enjoy just being on vacation. The year we went to Denmark, we had so few low-key days at home that it almost felt as if we didn’t have a vacation at all. I’m just really not a good traveler. When I go down to school, I feel like I lose a couple of days on either side of the trip, first to anticipation, then to recovery. Left to my own devices, I think I might turn into a hermit, venturing away from home only when I needed to restock the larder. Olof is much the same, which is probably one of the reasons we get on so well.

All of this pains our eldest child considerably. She’s aching to travel far beyond the borders of Sweden at any and every opportunity, but it just doesn’t fit into our lifestyle. There’s plenty I’d like to see, sure, but compared with the hassle of getting where I’d need to be to see it, staying home nearly always looks like the better option. Maybe one day, when the little kids are older — or perhaps even when our nest is empty — we’ll explore some of those places we’ve always wanted to go, but for the moment, going to Uppsala for a couple of days is adventure enough for me.