[gallery link="file"] It's no holiday, but traveling with kids can be fun and rewarding.  Forget the teething bubs, the tantrums, the water care, the fact that you can't do many tours - and you are in for a great time.  What you can't do is made up for with what you can do.  Massages when they are asleep, afternoon naps for yourself, lots of swimming in the pool, stopping to chat with lots of locals, spending all day with your kids as a family and generally messing about.

We have just got home from Phuket, an adventure that saw us do all of the above and more.  The most 'excting' time saw us up a mountain in a local home for five hours due to a tsunami evacuation.  While we were up there we were told that 1000's had been killed in Indonesia from three waves eight metres high.  When we finally edge down the hill at 9.30pm to find a hotel on the hill, we are told that all warnings have been cleared and no wave is coming.

I'm still wary of staying in our beachside villa and want to be transfered to a room in the main building.  Nothing is available, so we end up back in our room.  Until at 5am we are woken by the fire alarm, this time however we are prepared.  We grab our pre packed backpacks, lock the kids in the pushers, and run to the lobby in our sleepwear.  It's a false alarm.  I want to go home now, so scared of staying and the racing adrenalin tiring me.  We are not aware yet that no one was killed by the tsunami.  We are not aware yet that there was no tsunami.

The kids don't go back to sleep, even though they have only had six hours.  After breakfast I get on the internet to find out what happened.  That's where I read there was no tsunami, only a 80cm wave, with no injuries.  I'm exhausted - thank goodness it's the last day.  No more adventures please, not for a while.