Europe - Day 25 (Headed home)

I can't decide if this trip went fast or not. It did not go slow..... it seems like a long time since we left home. But we are just now really ready to be home again.
So, today we do it... last flight of the trip.

We had breakfast at our hotel.. with a ton of other people. I was amazed at how many people were having breakfast this morning. Our hotel is much larger than it seemed yesterday. We scored a table in the outside courtyard.

The view up at breakfast. 

Check out wasn't til noon, so we had a nice lazy morning. We decided we were not going to try and get any more sight seeing in today. We have a 4 pm flight out of Newark, so we could have squeezed something in... but at least half of us, need a slower pace. [Editor's note: Turns out that after 25 days of traveling, you aren't as concerned about filling every minute of your time away.]
So we relaxed, took our time repacking and checked out at noon.

We left home with two rolling bags and four carry-on bags. Returning home with three rolling bags and 5 carry-on bags. Is that good or bad for a 25 night trip? Additional rolling bag was purchased, carry-on bag was a pack-able we took with us. 

The part I was the most anxious about today was maneuvering all our stuff from the hotel to Penn Station, where we get the train to the airport. It was a handful of blocks and I find the pace of the NYC streets a bit quick... add the bags and I wasn't sure about this plan. But it all worked out fine. We slowed our pace a bit... didn't try to keep up with the locals in crossing streets and were at the station with no issues.

escalator to the train. 

We took a train out to Jersey, then caught the airport monorail to the terminal we needed at Newark Airport. After checking our suitcases and an easy lunch, it wasn't too long til we boarded our plane. Hubby was feeling a bit worse today. I am feeling almost normal again an our young man is congested, so we decided I would sit with the kids and he could have the other isle for a slightly quieter flight. I sat between the two and we had a nice 6 hour flight home.
Hubby watched some movies, our young lady played games on her kindle and listened to music and our young man and I got half way through a book on audible. With some mild ear pressure coming down, we landed and were headed home right on time.

We did the whole rent a car for the day trick again.... And home was right where we left it. Apparently the local spiders have decided our front door was too exposed, and were working on a nice web to cover it. Luckily I spotted it before I walked right into it.
Ahh. home and bed... let's All get some sleep. We are not up late local time, but its past midnight in NYC, and we are feeling it.

Final stats from the trip

3832 Nautical Miles sailed - From Dover to NYC

Flights: 4

Rental Cars: 5 (2 were at home to get to and from the airport)

Trains: 4-7 (Depending on whether you count light rail: TGV, Eurostar, Paris RER, London Underground, TFL Rail, NY Subway, NJ Transit Rail)

Counties: 6 (Germany, France, England, Ireland, Canada, US)

Oceans crossed: 1 (both ways)

Hotels: 7 (not including the floating hotel, ie: Disney Cruise Line) 

Additional suitcases purchased: 1

Afternoon teas enjoyed: 4 

Number of pictures taken: 1947 (hahaha - oh wow, thank goodness for digital cameras right!)

Castles visited: 3 (if you let me include the castle at Disneyland Paris) 

Cannons fired: 2 (we didn't fire them ourselves...)

Currencies used: 4 (US Dollars, Euros, Pounds, Canadian Dollars)

New Languages attempted: 2

You Are Here Mugs purchased: 5 

[Editor's addition: On this trip, we pre-paid for as much as possible and took currency with us for everything else and basically didn't use any credit cards in Europe. These are the Euros and Pounds that we had left over.]