Too big?

I've been looking into vacation deals for us.  I would love to go on a real holiday that doesn't include visiting relatives or friends (no slight against relatives or friends here!) -- just us and the kids and sweet Nichtstun*.  Complete relaxation.

You're saying?

Oh, yes.  I see your point.  Three kids and relaxation don't really go together, I agree.  However!  In Germany there is a trend towards family hotels - small and big hotels with great service for families.  One hotel in Rügen even offers to pick up your kids at your hotel door at 8 am so you can sleep in.  How fabulous is that? I think this sounds like heaven on Earth.  Full time kids' program from 8 am to 9 pm, special supervised kids' dinner service from 6 pm to 8 pm so your spouse and you can eat by yourself, like real civilized people, kids' clubs, babies' clubs, swim lessons, arts and crafts, bike tours, hiking, gourmet food for the grown-ups... What's not to like?

Well, you see.  All the hotel prices are listed for 2 adults and 2 kids. Because that, my friends, is the German standard family size.

So what if you have three kids? Or more?

Well, if your kids are little, I don't think it's much of a problem.  You can always order an extra cot for the littlest one and have your three beds.  Or you talk your friends of the single child into coming with you and taking on one of yours (ha! because everybody likes to have a alien child not sleeping with them!). Maybe you have to pay a little extra for an additional kid.

The thing is, this shouldn't be necessary.  The fact that they only have rooms for four people is ridiculous. There are plenty families in Germany who have three kids. Trust me. I feel a bit like an outcast with my three kids, though.

(Tied into this is the fact that we can't find a place in Germany big enough for all of us.)

I've never thought of my family as particularly big.  It's just the size it is, you know?  For us, that's normal. Well, until the day when the check-in agent at Munich airport called his supervisor and said to her, "I'd like to stay past my shift for ten minutes.  I have a large family here, this takes some time."**
And I said to him, "I never thought of ourselves as a big family."  He smiled, "But you are."

I guess.

*A very useful German word: Doing nothing. Hey, I bet you didn't think we'd have a word for that!

**The word is used was "Großfamilie", literally "big family".  A term for, so I found out, a family with 3+ kids.

Comments

[Natalie]

Sure, we'll come. Allison won't mind as long as she doesn't have to share her bed with Jacob... :-)

[Noel Maurer]

Three kids is big???

One day I gotta visit Germany. Combine people thinking that a three-child family is big with the whole techno music thing, and you have no idea how pleasantly /alien/ the place sounds.

Plus all mod cons! And no speed limits! And (I'm told) beer in movie theaters!

Wasted my one trip, I did. Must go again.

[Natalie]

We liked the "no speed limits" part. At least Larry and I did. The person we traveled with was a bit white-knuckled...