Last day in Paris

Our last day in Paris didn't go entirely the way that we had planned, but that's bound to happen on such a long trip.  I'm posting this from my kitchen table, having slept in my own bed last night, extremely grateful to both be home and to have had such an amazing time.

The kids had wanted to do the Paris Catacombs since they heard about them.  I, not a lover of small dark spaces, had no interest.  So Pete took the kids down into the dark and I walked about for a bit, stopping to sit at a cafe and have a cup of coffee, after having found a bakery with the MOST delicious brioche ever.  So we all enjoyed our time.

Pete and the kids said that the catacombs were really cool.  About 1800ish Parisians realized they were running out of room to bury their dead.  So they dug up a whole lotta people and moved their bones here.  Later on they got a little artsy with things.

bones

This doesn't make the kids look creepy at all.

Fancy bones 

The trip through took about an hour, and then we went back to the apartment to pack up for our trip home.  After hanging out a bit we decided to head over to the Champs d'Elysee to see what it was all about and to see the Arc de Triomphe.  Lea was psyched because she really wanted a Paris St. Germain sweatshirt and there was a who St. Germain store.  Jax was psyched because we got to see some very fancy cars (available for rent).

Lamborghini Aventador 

This was probably the highlight of the trip for Jax #notkidding

Yup.  That's a big Arc.  Very Triomphy

This whole time Lea was battling not feeling so great, but was generally being a sport since it was our last day. We were on our way over to stand under the Arc when Lea really started feeling unwell.  So we made a change of plans - back to the apartment and to a very close restaurant for some pho, skipping our trip to the Eiffel Tower.  A bit of a bummer of a way to end things, but such is life.  We had a nice evening hanging out, and were then able to get up and out early for our long travel day.

Aside from the length, the trip home was quite easy.  Paris -> Philadelphia was about 8.5 hours, a 3 hour layover that involved clearing customs, and then Philadelphia -> Boston was the fastest flight ever, with barely 45 minutes in the air.

About 7 hours in.  Thrilled to still be on a plane.

Mom met us at baggage claim with a homemade sign (and breakfast food in the car, which was so nice) we went home and had pizza, made it until about 9.30 (so 3.30am Paris time) and collapsed into bed.

Not surprisingly we were all up pretty early this morning, and we're spending the day doing home-from-vacation things like laundry, vacuuming, and endlessly smushing the dogs.

We missed this nugget so much.  And the other one, but she doesn't like to pose for pictures.

There will be one more post with some thoughts and links, but this is pretty much the end of the adventure.  It was a lot, and it was great.