A change is as good as a rest - travelling with twins (We rock Wednesdays)

We're just back from a few days away. It's true, a change can be as good as a rest (a rest being something that doesn't appear that often when you have 23m old twins!) We were visiting family in Sussex and as I'm still not confident driving (and it was the Bank Holiday) we planned our trip by public transport. Travelling by public transport, when you have twins and a buggy, means travelling light, planning your route, and packing well!

We had a fabulous time. One of the good things about going away for a few nights is that even though you have the general looking after the boys type jobs that go with toddlers (nappy changing, feeding etc), it meant that some of the jobs didn't need doing. We didn't need to tidy up. We didn't need to wash up or cook, as we were out (or what we did was minimal as we were with family so sharing jobs). It's surprising just those few small things add up to make it feel like a break.

And the boys were great. Our journey to Sussex included the bus (our local train station has steep steps and no lift), the train, the London Underground, the London Overground, and another train! We kept them entertained with books that we had taken with us, and telling stories and singing. Not sure what the other passengers thought! 

Tips

• Make a list of what you need to take.
• Consider what you can realistically carry with you. We were lucky this time because we were visiting family that we were able to send some nappies and wipes in advance which saved us some room packing.
• Take some snacks with you so that you have something to eat on the way.
• Take small things to entertain - we have found stickers and small books useful, and we also saw other parents travelling using their iPad's or similar.
• Look out for places where it is easier to get onto the train etc, our local service has started marking on the ground where the disabled carriage is on the train which means a little more space (obviously we would have needed to move if a wheelchair came on). 
• You can check your route through London for disabled access which also helps if you are taking a buggy, with Transport for London. 

I'm a member of a fab twin group on Facebook and I was able to ask what good places there were to visit locally (without a car). This helped us find a local park with recommendations of where to eat too. 

The hotel were really great (we stayed in a Premier Inn). We had booked 2 travel cots in advance and here are some of my tips from our stay:

• If you have booked cots, call in advance to the hotel and double check that they have the booking for 2 cots if you are travelling with twins. (We already knew we could get two travel cots as we had asked on a similar trip earlier this year, but you could play it safe and call before you book to check procedures where you are going)
• Move things out of the way that you know will be fascinating - things like the bin, cables etc.
• Consider booking your breakfast time the night before so you can get a highchair (or two in our case) reserved rather than finding out in the morning they are being used). 
• Check what is included - at Premier Inn we found up to 2 children of a certain age could eat per paying adult breakfast, which although breakfast wasn't cheap at just under £9, it worked out good value when you included the kids breakfasts.
• Consider taking your own cutlery/beakers etc - often they only have adult cutlery and crockery. We used their teaspoons and small dessert forks although we had our own forks as backup. 
• Our breakfast came on hot, adult sized plates - we asked for a spare cold side plate and cut the food up and decanted it onto that.