Europowells: February 2013

We have just returned from a very lovely ski week away. I very luxuriously booked a Kinderhotel which has "free" child care and is all very child friendly. It just took the whole stress out of delivering children to different places in potentially cold snowy weather. It's hard at the moment as Alex is too small to ski (except for a few minutes) and Katie wants to ski with us but is too small and is better off in ski school which of course she loved.

So we went off to the Kleinwalsertal which is just in Austria over the border from Oberstdorf in Germany and stayed at this hotel. We got the last room which was a double room with an extra bed and a cot in but plenty of space for us all really. We had a balcony too. It was the first time we have done a Saturday to Saturday ski holiday and it was quite nice in some ways doing the week in the hotel from start to finish.

It was a very easy two hour drive to get to and the hotel is situated so you can ski right from it to a chair lift but coming back you have to get a really steep t-bar which I hated as I always felt I would fall off with Katie - and we did once and the other time the t-bar flipped up from behind me and I wen the rest of the way up hanging onto it with my arms from grim death with Katie between my legs. Must have looked a right muppet. Arms were killing me!

View to the left from our balcony

So, although I felt a little bad about leaving Alex in the kids club (but I don't know why as that was the whole point so we could ski!), he was fine with it all and loved the girls and a very camp chap called Chris! He went outside with them too and had a generally fun time before I came back for him between two and three in the afternoon.

Katie skied with us on the Sunday and then did ski school for the rest of the week which she loved - although she claimed to be too tired to do a full day the following day!

We are definitely spoiled with our skiing at SkiWelt. Not the snow necessarily but the huge interconnected area and constantly upgraded lifts. The skiing was fab as it snowed most of the time so the snow was just deep and fluffy and kept a lot of muppets off the piste. But the areas were all small and not connected which was ok, you just got a five minute bus and it was all easy, but some of the lifts were so old and slow! If it had been beautiful sunshine all week with easy piste skiing I think we would have covered it all by the second day, so we were pleased that the snow made for great powder skiing. Not so great for Alex to have a try though as it was all just a bit too deep. But for me, my legs were killing me so was quite grateful to go back early to spend time with Alex, which was in the pool mostly. Which he loved.

Katie skied from 10-12 and then 1:30-3:30. She was the youngest in her group and was really good - very relaxed and controlled. We were really proud of her. She skied a bit with us too and I now feel confident about taking her anywhere on the slopes if not too steep as she can now do all the lifts too.

First day of ski school.

On the Friday she didn't want to do ski school as she wanted to ski with us but there was the race in the morning and medals to present. The races were so funny. The raced within their group and Katie came 6th out of 9 think. The commentator was fab and so hilariously funny as these small kinders came carefully slaloming down. She got a medal and certificate and photo. Alex also had a small ski too and he really enjoyed it so I must take him to Lenggries by himself soon.

The evenings were nice too. The children could eat at 6pm in the kids club and then stay down there for evening entertainment until we were finished with our dinner and then we all went to bed.

All in all it was a lovely holiday and can't wait for when Alex is skiing too. Worth every penny.