Things to do in Sweden- Skövde

i.e back home for us :) Being back home and having a few days off as I have now and then cause I work 24-hour shifts, I need to amuse the kids nearby and thought I'd share my tips from around the lakes of Vänern (Swedens largest lake, it's huge) and another lake caleld Vättern, wich is were we live, about 20 km north of Gothenburg and 300 km south of Stockholm. We live at the countryside and most of the time the kids are happy to be outside at home but sometimes both me and them needs to see some people ;) (guess that's why they love going to bigger cities like Paris and Copenhagen ;) Anyway, about 20 minutes by car from our house there's a city called Skövde, not that big, but it offers a great load of stuff to with kids! Skövde Today me and my two youngest ended up at "Stella's playland" (Stellas lekland in Swedish),a great place for the children to run around in, going down slides and jumping trampolines. Free for adults and an "adultcorner" with tv and computers - perfect as I can blog and keep an eye on the kids having fun together at the same time - even if I go down a few slides with them too - it's fun! My oldest son is spending the last days of summer holiday with his grandparents in Gothenburg and at the festival (Kulturkalaset)held there this week - he'd been trying sailing and a lot of other fun activities for children. This place is easy to reach and find both by car and bus, and you could also walk here from the centre of Skövde, guess it'd take about 20 minutes. A little cafe that serves snacks, children-(and veggie-friendly food, coffee etc. Special area for the youngest so the bigger kids aren't in their way andd vice versa. If you're here at summer make sure the kids are wearing socks, or you'll have to buy them a pair each. Other fun stuff to do in Skövde with your kids is the great swimming arena with lots of fun stuff and also a spa for mom, dad or older brothers and sisters - Arena Skövde www.arena.se We also visit Balthazar sometimes were the kids can try different experiments lead by preschoolteachers and check out cool stuff like how to create energy, what it would be like beeing on the moon etc. This summer the barbecue is on from 12-13 so you can barbecue your lunch if you'd like! http://balthazar.nu/english/ When weather is good there's a artificial lake in the park Boulogner and great nature at the mount Billingen - where you also can ski both downhill and flat during the wintermonths!

Benalmadena - travelling there with three kids made easy :)

This year on my very short summer vacation, we went to a lovely Place called Benalmadena, just outside Malaga, in Spain. None of us having been there before we were all very excited of course!


To prepare our kids¨aged 4, 7 and 11 we showed them this great "touristguidevideo" when we told them where we were going:






http://www.spain-holiday.com/Benalmadena




Very informative for all of us! (I found the same translated to Swedish so I am sure it can be found in other languages too).




When it came to packing we used a lot of tips and tricks from the internet and they turned out great!
For our 6 Days I packed 6 outfits/child and it was more than enough. I also packed their swimwear and nightwear in their own carry-ons and I only packed one toilleterie-bag for all of us (yes your hair gets clean with kids' shampoo too ;). 
This way we had 4 bags on 5 people, leaving us the possibility to bring an extra carry-on to fill with any shopping that we may do.
We also saved the money it would have cost to check in a larger bag - and if it hadn't been for the stroller we wouldn't have had to wait for anything at the airport either.






A few Pictures from our flight from Stockholm, Sweden to Malaga, Spain!


 Roll the clothes, pack inside shoes and put the shoes between the poles at the pull out handle, put underwear, swimwear etc in separate ziplock bags and pack items that has more than one ourpose (like a fancy swimsuit that duoubles as a top and goodlooking runningshoes that you can wear in town aswell) - and you can fit 1-2 weeks packing in a carry-on without overweight!
                                                                            






                                                                                                                                     
 Having a little kid who loves running around it was great having this ergo baby carrier that allows you to carry a child up to 20 kg! I had him on my back after security check while boarding and then when he'd fallen asleep during landing he could continue his nap although we didn't have the stroller and I had both hands free beeing able to pull 1-2 bags or holding the other children's hands :)




This was a Little about the flight, tomorrow I'll update you on how our first days in Benalmadena were and my do's and don'ts of the touristattractions we tried.

In Spain!

Spending this week in the south of Spain at Costa del Sol in Benalmadena to be precise,  i'm eager to shark our experiences with you, but there are so many things to do and see here so when the kids finally are asleep and i have time to blog, i'm most of the time to tired to write anything useful ;)

So that's why the most of my tips from this area will be posten next week when we're back home. Then I'll also post more photos, can't seem to figure out how to upload photos he on the ipad.

But I will of course already now tell u a little bit of our experiences so far and how the travelhacks from pinterest  used on this trip turned out.
We started our trip sunday evening with an almost 5 hour flight so we arrived just before midnight.
I used a tip from pinterest and packes pyjamas, blanket and toothbrush for our youngest for easy acces on the plane and put it on, brusade hos teets and read him a bedtime story. He didn't fall asleep, probably becquerel he was to excited about the trip/flying, but this way he was prepared for sleeping when we reached our destination and fell right asleep in the taxi from the airport :)
We landed in Malaga were none of the taxi-drivers spoke more than a few words of english, and also there were no big taxis so we had to take two being fine in our family. We arrived to late to take the train or bus but it's a much better and cheaper choice if you get here a little bit earlier (last train from Malaga airport to benalmadena leaves at 23.42). Then arrange for a local taxicompany to pick u up att the trainstation - they will most likely both speak english and know the streets at your destination (the drivers from Malaga didn't and were very unpolite to the lady we rent from WHO i called and avsked to give him direktions in Spanish).

Anyway,we got to our rental apartment that is situated very much in the middle of everything with is perfect for us - just a few minutes walk weather you're going to the beach, the park, the city centre or to one of the attractions like tivoli world or selwo marina (dolpihins,sealions etc).

i'll create different blogposts of the attractions and places We've visited as i will about tired and testet travelhacks :)

See ya !