They came and are now gone...

My parents and niece finally left this past saturday morning. They took the train to Paris airport, then flew for 12 or so hours to LA, transit for 1hr and a half, then 8 more hours in the plane to Tahiti, which is very close to a 24hr trip. Any takers?

I really had a blast with them even if we were stuck at home most of the time because our car was too small for all of us. They really enjoyed being with their grandchildren, my niece really enjoyed playing with her only cousins. She's been wanting and asking to see them for a year. She kept saying that because she was the oldest, she will be the one giving orders to Taiamani and Ilyah, she'd be watching them, taking care of them... to sum up, she'll be in charge. Unfortunately, our kids have quite some personality and didn't quite listen to her. They would sometime be 2 against her. However, most of the time, she got along with Taiamani great, and they would be really close friends. Poor Ilyah, he often played by himself because he was a boy and was a bit too young to understand the role playing. Once, they pretended being a family with Taiamani as the MOM, Moehani (my niece) the baby, and Ilyah the DAD (he didn't quite understand his role). Here's a little bit of what happened.

(In French)

Moehani: "Mama, I want my daddy!"
Taiamani: "You want your daddy? ok! DADDY!!! come!"
Ilyah: "Papa? where's papa?" he comes to me and asks where's his papa, and I respond that he's at work. he goes back to the girls and says to them "Papa is gone, papa is at work"

Sometimes, Ilyah slaps out of nowhere Moehani while they're playing
Moehani pretends to cry: "Mama, papa hit me!"
Taiamani: "it's no good papa! Papa, go in the corner!" pointing the finger to Ilyah

Their last week was pretty sad for me. I kept telling myself "it's my last monday with them! it's my last tuesday! etc...", and the weather here didn't help a bit, it rained the WHOLE week. I had a hard time falling asleep on friday night, I was thinking about monday and being alone with the kids again, no more adult company for me. I also thought that if I stayed awake, time would slow down and I would keep them just a little longer.
I didn't think that this time around I would have a hard time leaving my parents. Knowing that I won't be able to hang out with them for a VERY long time, and my parents health problems kind of got me stressed out. Moreover, I don't even know when I'll be able to see the beautiful weather of the islands (I can't stand Belgium's weather) and partake of the wonderful food.

We called a taxi for saturday morning at 6am to pick up my parents, then we took our car to join them at the train station in Brussels Midi. Departure time was supposed to be at 7:30 but it was 20min late. It was nice to have 20 extra min with them but at the some time, I was nervous that they would miss the plane in Paris. We helped them with their luggages inside the train, then stepped out and looked at them through the window. We kept waving and saying our good byes until Taiamani started fussing because she wanted to go with them to Tahiti. We waved one last time, Ilyah blew kisses then we left to the parking. I saw their sad faces and made me really sad. My mom later told me that Moehani cried for an unusually long time after we left (she's 6 and a half years old).

I got a little depressed throughout the day but thankfully I have a wonderful husband who kept cheering me up and tried to find any kind of activities to keep my mind busy. We don't usually do much on saturdays, but this time we did one thing after another, even taking a nice nap (because we woke up at 5am to get ready).