It's early stages still, but I have started booking flights now that we're less than a year out from our departure from Melbourne. This time around, with the kids being older (Max is at secondary school) and Jemima (who will be starting Grade Six when we get back from BigTrip2 next year) really can't afford to miss out on school like they did last time around. Sharon also has a full time position teaching and is also therefore restricted to official school holidays.
So, instead of eight weeks, we've had to cut the trip back to six which means a bit less time and not as many places to visit.
The plan is to fly to Switzerland (15-16Dec16), then train to pretty locations to look at Christmas markets, snowy mountains and little villages, then train to Paris and spend five days there (20-26Dec-16). From Paris, we'll catch the Channel Tunnel train (26Dec16) to London and spend some time with relatives in England - Ascot, St Leonards on Sea and Old Dalton Marsh. We were hoping to drive and ferry across the Irish sea, but time won't let us, so we'll be flying into Dublin (05Jan17) and spend a few days driving and experiencing Ireland (Max's choice).
From Ireland, we'll fly to Chicago (10Jan17) and drive 90 mins north to Milwaukee to spend some time with Sharon's Brother Paul and his family. From there, we're off to Seattle (Boeing here I come!) (13Jan17) and across the boarder to Vancouver (17Jan17).
To get over the cold of Vancouver and to avoid the mistakes of BigTrip1, we're going to spend five days in Hawaii (21-27Jan17) just winding down on the way home across the Pacific to home on 28Jan17.
