Rarely in our travels do we get to visit family. It’s not intentional, it’s just that we’ve been focusing on knocking off the foreign countries on our bucket list. We’ve been traveling internationally every other year, and only this year decided to use the years in between for domestic travel, which gives us the opportunity to visit more with family and friends. 

For our Niagara trip, we decided to fly into Westchester County Airport, just north of New York City, an easy, direct flight from West Palm Beach. This would allow us to add some places to our itinerary that we’ve been wanting to see in upstate New York and begin and end our Grand Loop of Lake Ontario with Marcus’s brother, Elliot, and family in Greenwich, Connecticut, only eight miles from Westchester.

Our “easy” flight got in four hours late, and it was after 9:00pm when we rolled into Elliot and Christine’s driveway. Their kids, Alex and Sascha, ages six and five, were supposed to be in bed, but materialized at the bottom of the stairs as we came into the house. They were too excited to sleep. They escorted us to our bedroom where personal notes of welcome lay on our respective nightstands. Throughout our visit, they followed me around like ducklings, never more than a hug away. Well, except for those times when decorum dictated that I excuse myself. And even then, upon opening the bathroom door I would find them just where I’d left them. I loved it!

Over coffee in the mornings, I taught them how to solve kenken puzzles, and they reciprocated by helping me time my dry-eye therapy. I was the “mystery reader” in Sascha’s kindergarten class and attended Alexandra’s piano recital. I climbed the playscape with them at school and cheered them on during their running time trials around the cul-de-sac. We celebrated the weekend with “pizza-and-movie night” in the basement and munched on delectables out of a picnic hamper at a polo match. We (and a stuffed monkey) explored deep space in our rocket ship on the couch before dinner and, after dinner, played board games at the table. (The monkey excused himself from board games, however, saying he had an early start the next day.)

The days were packed with activity, but I vividly remember one quiet moment after Alex and Sascha had both rehearsed their upcoming recital pieces with their parents. I looked up from my spot on the couch and was struck by the familiness around me. Elliot and Christine were still at guitar and piano, enjoying some time together to dig into their own music. Sascha constructed skyscrapers with Jenga pieces in the light from the piano, stopping now and then to capture his creations with the camera on an iPad. And Alex and Marcus played chess at the dining room table in the room beyond. It’s been too many years since we’ve been this intimately engaged in the dynamics of a family. I miss it, but am so thankful that we had this opportunity to experience it again.

Thank you, Elliot and Christine, Alex and Sascha, for inviting us into your family, and for reminding us of an often-forgotten benefit of travel.♥