Malta

It’s a country made up of three tiny islands in the Mediterranean Sea roughly 50 miles south of Sicily. And for the first week of Herbstferien, or Fall Break, we stayed at a family-friendly, all inclusive resort on the beach there.

{Waiting at Tegel for our first of two flights}

{Benny, with Sammy the Sloth, ready for take off}

{Arriving in Istanbul}

We first flew 2:40 to Istanbul to catch our second flight via the new international airport there. It was impressive. And massive. And took quite a while to get from one gate to the next (the kids were missing ATL’s plane train by the time we got to gate F3B). But it was pretty.

{Inside Istanbul’s new airport. It seemed as though one could fly to anywhere in the world.}

We then boarded our second Turkish Air flight, this time for 2:10, to arrive in Malta. After getting used to flying no-frills Ryan Air, TA seemed posh with extremely friendly and accommodating flight attendants as well as complimentary checked luggage, WiFi, headphones, new releases on individual TV screens, and tasty meals on board. {Ben is a BIG reader now and finished a few pages while waiting for our luggage to arrive in Malta.}

{Indoor pool where we spent a lot of our time}{Relaxing by the outdoor pool. We played a lot of Go Fish during our trip.}{Enjoying the crystal clear waters of the beach across the street from the resort}

With Berlin turning cooler (we’ve been wearing coats already) and more days turning grey, my main goal of the trip was to soak up as much Vitamin D as we could. And we did.

{Enjoying dinner at the Resort}

It was so low stress staying in a hotel with daily cleaning as well as all of our meals provided. We had gotten used to staying in Air BnBs for many reasons. Then tended to be less expensive. Many are located in the residential areas of a city allowing us to experience our travels more as locals. And while the boys were young, we had access to a kitchen for quick meals, we had more space to spread out with all of the apparatus such as strollers and packs plays and it just seemed more homelike. Now that the boys are older, staying in hotels, especially with one or more meals provided, feels more our speed right now. As it it did in Malta. And we were grateful.

{Evening stroll after dinner the second night. The boys begged us to ask the fisherman to let them try.}

Our resort was only one kilometer from the set of where the 1980 Popeye Movie with Robin Williams had been shot. It had been maintained as a family theme park with actors dressed as the characters, museums, pools, a beach and a bounce house. We were there all day. Knowing that we would probably go there during our trip, I had made sure we watched the movie before we left for Malta. The boys, especially Ben, were really into it. I loved it since it had been a childhood favorite of mine. Dave, however, was not a fan of the movie musical. I get it.

{Popeye Village was a fun outing for us}

I woke before Dave and the boys most mornings and slipped out to take walks.

One morning, I climbed the hill to the town of Mellieha and came across the 8:00 morning mass in the Parish Church.

{Morning walks to Mellieha and Popeye Village}

One sunny day, we went to a water park. There were some seriously intense slides. One of which, the Sidewinder, Ben went on eight times. We all loved the wave pool.

{Ben at the water Park. Notice the big orange slide in the background – the Sidewinder}

I swear we all grew this week. The boys grew upward and the grownups outward! There was always food available. We felt like we were on a cruise ship.

{Meal schedule}

{Afternoons were filled with ice cream}

One day was quite rainy, so the boys visited the resorts fish spa. Ha!

{Fish spa addicts}

On what was supposed to be a rainy day, we went to the National Aquarium as well as the 8th century city of Mdina. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mdina

(Apparently another Game of Thrones filming location. We have been to two filming locations this year including Dubrovnik and we don’t even watch the show. Guess it’s time to start!)

{Visiting Malta’s National Aquarium}

{Mdina}

As our time in Malta was ending, I felt recharged and ready for Fall in Berlin.

However, this resolve was tested as we flew Ryan Air back to Berlin and our luggage only decided to follow us a few days later. While we have one more trip booked with Ryan Air, I plan to vote with my Euro and avoid them in the future as this was the second unnecessary negative experience we’ve had with that airline – I will spare the details here.

Regardless, we came back home to Berlin and found that Fall had come while we were gone.

{New haircuts – cutting off the beach hair – in preparation of upcoming school photos.}

With one more week before school begins again, we plan to go on a road trip to Poland as well as attending Octoberfest and the Festival of Lights in Berlin. It’s nice to be back.