Gerringong Weekend Away!

Since having Ella, we have only managed to get away once, to The Entrance, and with my entire family at the holiday home.  It was crazy with 4 families and all the kiddies in one space.  Ella had a great time with all her cousins and had her best sleep ever there (her personal best of 6.5hours sleep in one go!).  Since then we hadn't been away - too busy with life I guess and trying to get her into a good sleep routine.

Bellachara Hotel

But as Des has been working really hard to support our fam, we thought we'd take a little break and spend a weekend away, a sort of trial run I suppose for (hopefully) more family holidays to come.  We were recommended lovely accomodation in Gerringong, in a boutique hotel called Bellachara.  It also had a nice restaurant there which was perfect for us - we could eat at the hotel early and get back to the room at a decent time for Ella's bed time.

Yummy dinner at the hotel restaurant

We were a little apprehensive at first - Ella doesn't like to sleep anywhere but her cot these days and this would be her first time in the porta-cot and sharing our room!  She is such a light sleeper that even slowly, closing her door can wake her up.  So sharing a room with her was quite a worry esp with noisy sleeper Dessy!

Enjoying lunch at Gerringong

Overall things worked out pretty well, apart from a bad start with Ella crying in the car for the first 40 mins before she finally fell asleep.  We arrived in Gerringong town for a little stroll and had some fish and chips and a giant burger picnic style on the grass overlooking the water.  Ella thoroughly enjoyed her first picnic lunch too - gulping down her sweet potato and pear with the wind blowing in her hair!

Ella enjoying the big king size bed

And she enjoyed her first hotel room stay - and even slept in the porta cot!  The hotel had free 24 hour movie channel (bonus for me!) but ellas cot was right in front of the giant tv so we didn't get to enjoy that perk :(  Lucky we brought our lappy though with movies on there as we couldn't really do anything once Ella went for her nap/sleep - we had to be nice and quiet so she could sleep and have the lights out so the room was dark - thank goodness for the lappy and headphones!!!

A rare family photo - blurry taken in the mirror!

Ella managed to sleep her normal night time sleep with her usual wake up/feed times at night so I was lucky that she didn't have a screaming fit as the walls between the rooms were paper thin (I could hear our neighbours when they were just laughing) - I would have felt terrible if Ella decided to show the rest the of the hotel just how big her lungs really are!

We even got a weekend away sleep in on Sunday - cause ella slept in till 8am herself - yay!  Got up and went for our big buffet breakfast (I love buffet breakies!) and then packed up and made our way back home (yes screaming in the car again - but only for about 15 mins this time - she just doesn't like to sleep in the car in the mornings I guess!).

Overall the weekend was a success!  I'm not too scared to travel with Ella anymore - where should we go next???