My husband and I date every Wednesday. It’s my hot tip for staying happily married and it is probably the reason why we have so many kids (we have four).
Four isn’t an amazing amount of children. I have many friends with four or more, but it is at that “professional breeding” level where strangers look twice at me and say things like “Are they all yours?” and when I smile and reply “Sure are,” they want to know if I birthed them or if we are a blended family. I have come to the conclusion that some people were born without filters!
Whilst I adore my kids, geez I love a night out without them. I could totally lose myself in motherhood – but I don’t want to. My husband and I make the effort to connect and gasbag all things other than bills, potty training and Minecraft on our weekly dates. And just recently we turned that night out to a whole night away.
We discussed going “actually away”, but I am so glad we chose to stay in Canberra. A holiday without travel is my kind of break! Once the sitter arrived, we jumped in our car and drove 3km down Canberra Avenue to Hotel Realm.
I was instantly in paradise! There was less to worry about because I could literally run home if I was desperately needed. And yet I was sitting in a gorgeous foyer waiting for room keys.
I could tell something was a little off at check-in. It was taking too long. I almost peed my pants when I found out why. The lovely folk at Hotel Realm had upgraded us to the Upper Penthouse! Whaaaaat?! Why? How does this happen? How do they select who to upgrade? Why us?
All my questions and yet none of them mattered because we were sleeping in the Penthouse and that was that. They didn’t know I was going to write about it later (this is NOT a sponsored post).
The room was divine! We joked that when we were older, we would live in a place like this. It was so nice to kick back, relax and watch the sunset (and play on our iPhones) in peace.
Later, we strolled across the road to The Burbury to hunt for dinner. I am constantly blown away at how many restaurants there are in Canberra. We are so lucky to have a stack of taste options in every pocket of the nation’s capital.
We stumbled into LiloTang, a not-so-new restaurant that masters in Japanese cuisine. I felt guilty not knowing it existed (Hotel Realm is literally a 15-minute jog from my house!). And yet if someone had told me I was in Melbourne I would have completely trusted them. It felt surreal.
My husband loved the food. I am more of a pizza and wine girl but I tried everything the amazingly knowledgeable wait staff brought us. It was almost guilt-free-eating too as everything was tasty, not oversized and really fresh. We didn’t do dessert because I remembered Hotel Realm had left us handmade chocolates on arrival. I scoffed those with a cup of tea when we got back to the room (No. Wait. Penthouse. When we got back to the Penthouse!).
The next morning we woke at 5:50am. Our stupid body clocks are so used to being up at the crack of dawn that we can’t sleep in even when desperate to. We did lie around for yonks which is something Mums NEVER get to do and I savored every second of me-time. Of course we called the kids, made sure everyone got through the night okay and checked the sitter wasn’t hating our guts already.
Breakfast was downstairs at Konoba. It was standard hotel-style buffet. You could order from the Menu too but we chose to serve ourselves. It was nice. Not over the top. A decent range of food groups, yet calm and simple. Complete contrast to my regular morning routine. It was lovely to spend time together reading the papers and not having to ask anyone to sit still, be quiet or be fearful that a drink was about to tip.
A mini-escape is all it takes to see your partner for the person they were when you first met. Sometimes to you need to taken out of the picture and placed somewhere else to really do this. I highly recommend escaping whilst staying in your home town.
It is hard to organise the children for your absence. I honestly feel uncomfortable asking others to do “my job”. I constantly have mother’s guilt but I need to lighten up. After all, the kids loved their mini adventure with Krystal, the best babysitter ever.
Overall it cost us around $900 for the hotel, dinner, wine, breakfast and babysitter. We see this as an investment in our relationship. Marriage is something that should be treasured. An overnight date in a fancy hotel every now and then is far cheaper (and more pleasurable!) than divorce.
Have you had a great stay in Canberra recently?
Find Jenny www.lovewednesday.com.au and on Instagram.
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