WOW! Awesome trip!

WOW! Awesome trip!
(9/1/10 - 9/4/10)

Well this was a great week for us! Paul had the week off and even though we just got back from a great trip to the beach we decided to head out again for another "family vacation"! But the real question was "Where?". We could go back to the beach (a closer one) or we could go to Pennsylvania and go to Sesame Place. So we decided on Sesame Place because it would be great to go to an amusement park where it is designed for little kids. So I researched and I almost booked a hotel when we realized that it was 4 hours away.....UGH!! Not another loooonnnnnggggg road trip. That was the clincher there was NO WAY we were going to be stuck in the car for another long trip, one 10 hour road trip is enough for one summer.

So since we liked the idea of an amusement park I started researching a little closer to home and found Dutch Wonderland. It is in Lancaster County PA and is in the heart of Amish Country. The more I researched the more I realized that there is TONS to do here. It isn't just antique shops and boring Amish tours.

We also rented an ENTIRE house through the Best Western in Intercourse, Pa and had an entire 4 bedroom, 2 bath house all to ourselves within walking distance of grocery, buggy rides, shops, and antique stores. The house was also within 15 minutes of Strasburg Railroad (where we road an authentic coal driven steam engine), Cherry Crest Adventure Farm (where we went through a 5 acre corn maze and played on over 50 kid activities), and 10 minutes from Dutch Wonderland (which has to be the coolest childrens age 2-10 amusement park around)!!!

The kids loved the house and ran/crawled around it all the time, they each had their own rooms so sleeping wasn't a problem and most schedules were kept normal. We ate out for most dinners but got to cook breakfast and lunches in the full kitchen in the house. Evenings were spent on the front porch watching all of the Amish Buggies take their passengers home. Overall I just don't think you could get a better vacation for two small kids. Jacob was great and overcame a lot of his "timidness" about heights and "adventure". He went on all of the rides and even rode most of them twice including a pretty crazy roller coaster.

We are adding this to our yearly trip plans and will take the kids back as often as we can until they are too big or don't have fun anymore!

Here are pictures of our trip!