School holidays. Rest and recharge, or pack it full?

The first school holiday fornight of the year is upon us, along with the enduring question: what will we do?

Thinking back, I can remember school holidays that were so full of activities we were exhausted by the end of them.

Outings mainly, to the movies, the zoo, the museum, play-dates, picnics, camping trips and driving holidays.

I've been doing the school holiday thing for so long now, my body marks its approach. Exhaustion floods me and I get cranky. It's harder for the kids to get out of bed in the morning, and we grumble at each other.

To fill our much needed break with as much fun as we can stand seems such a waste of what could be a period of rest. Rest from getting up early, making lunches and rushing to catch trains.

Each time the holidays have rolled around, we've scheduled less and less. This school holidays, we scheduled nothing at all.

It's been bliss.

For so much of the year we're fleeting visitors to our home, spending much more time away from it that in it. And when we are here, we're either cooking, eating, cleaning or sleeping. It has been nice to spend uninterrupted days pottering around our base.

The other thing that's been different about these holidays is the absence of electronic games. The playstation, the DS and the Wii are banned from use, and the computer is off-limits to children. We've always had limits on the use of these playthings, so the kids have had to find other ways to amuse themselves when game-time was up. Meaning going without this time wasn't such a stretch.

So far they've read books, played outside heaps, and spent time with their dogs and their old toys. They've watched some tv, but haven't been glued to it. Both of my children are writing autobiographies as school projects, so we've been looking at old photos and telling family stories. It's been lovely.

And because we've had no plans we turned all of the alarms off and have slept for at least ten hours a night, and we've had time to cook good meals.

We've had a real rest, before throwing ourselves back in to the world. And boy, did we need it.

What's everybody else doing?