Vacation or Trip?

Courtesy of a friend's Facebook page, a few days ago I was treated to a very funny Huffington Post article entitled "Vacation or Trip? A Helpful Guide For Parents."  Go ahead, read it!

In a nutshell, the author argues that any time spent away from home involving your children, a kitchen, another family or relatives is a trip, not a vacation (which by definition involves actual peace, quiet and/or relaxation.)  The part of the article that hit home the most for me??  This paragraph:

What is Your Role in the Family?
If you are the Default Parent and/or the Stay-at-Home Parent, you aren't even on a trip. You are on a work trip, and, in a perfect world, the entire "journey to a place" would be a damn tax write-off. The only known and quantifiable "break" you are getting from life is that for about a week you will not have to open and sort the mail. Other than that, it's business as usual.

Yep, that's about it.  I've jokingly-but-not-jokingly told my husband that our beach trips are essentially exercises in moving my standard jobs to places where it is harder to get them done (although it is becoming blessedly simpler as the kids get older, I will say that much.)

At any rate, I was thinking about this today because I just this morning booked an actual vacation for Himself and me!  Just a long-weekend trip to a historic inn in a beautiful mountainous area a few hours away by car, not jetting off to Hawaii or anything, but I can't wait.  The kids will be at my in-laws' that week, so we'll be able to relax and read and eat and sleep in peace!  And considering that we are taking a trip (literally and figuratively) with them the whole week before, we'll definitely be due for a vacation by then.  :)