Ski Break ... Feb. 20-22, 2009

The girls had ski break this week, so I took a day off so we could at least enjoy a long "ski weekend" together. We went again with our good friends from Budapest, the Birnbaums, like we did last year. We found another fun all-inclusive KinderHotel in Austria which had an indoor playground, on-site ski school, babysitting, and large comfortable rooms. It was not as cozy as last year's place, but it was overall better. It was bigger and the food was better, I thought.
We left Friday morning and arrived at the resort around noon. We ate lunch, checked into our room, and then got dressed to go sledding. There was a big hill for sledding, which would have been better if it had a rope tow or something, but at least we got some exercise. Ryan was almost falling asleep before we left, so I just laid him in the sled and he was out. He just enjoyed the ride! I made him a little tent, but he woke up pretty soon after.We took a snowmobile ride quickly around the park with all three kids, which was fun. After sledding we headed for the indoor playground where the kids ran around until dinner. We went swimming after dinner and were all tired out after that. The girls had not been feeling well and didn't sleep great, therefore neither did we, but it was manageable.
We got up the next morning and got ready to go skiing. We dropped the kids off at the babysitting place, including Ryan, and then Heather, Jason, Laura, and I made our way to the slopes. The snow had been falling non-stop for I am not sure how long. We decided to just ski for a couple of hours because we had to get back to get Ryan. But admittedly, it was all I could do. It was great snow, but just too much of it! I am just glad that we all made it through without any incident, since last year I broke my shoulder. It was enjoyable to be all together for a little while. Each run was increasingly more difficult as the snow kept falling, but we had a lot of fun (even Heather, after she got through the first run).
We drove back, picked up the kids for lunch, then took them sledding again. Ashley wasn't feeling well, so she stayed with Heather and Ryan in the room while I took Katie, and Jason took AJ (Sam and Jack stayed back at the room as well). We had a good time racing down the mountain with only a few wipeouts.
After sledding the kids went to the playplace for a while before finishing out the day at dinner and then swimming again. At this point I was EXHAUSTED. Skiing, sledding, and swimming wiped me out for the day.
The next morning we noticed it STILL had not stopped snowing. We had to dig ourselves out of the parking lot. Fortunately, it wasn't too difficult. We packed up and checked out and made it back to Budapest in the early afternoon.