Visas to Oman, check.  Plane tickets to Oman, check.  Start date at PDO, check.  

Well, with all of our boxes checked off, we still had two weeks to kill before heading to the Middle East as we had to wait until well after Ramadan to arrive in the country.  We were flying out of Paris to Muscat so after we dropped off the Hypermobil, we took the EuroRail back to the capital city for one last hurrah in France.  We managed to find another great VRBO which had the perfect set up for our family, was within walking distance to grocery stores and parks and even had a great lookout spot for the Eiffel Tower and more.  We were determined to not spend too much money so we cooked at home, packed picnic lunches of fresh baguettes and fruit and did lots of walking.

A great view of the city!

Playing games. We packed three or four games with us and played every other day.

Walking the streets of Paris. Yes, we also visited McDonald’s.

We walked to another park in the rain, just to get out of the apartment.

I think Paris might be one of the most child friendly cities as it is safe, there are acres of green space, parks and interesting playgrounds and the public transportation system is excellent.  We found an amazing and out of the box playground for the boys to use, only five minutes away from the apartment and we went there almost every day.  The boys climbed and slid and crawled and played hide and seek and even found an American boy to play with.  They were thrilled to find someone who spoke English so they connected with Miles immediately.  Richard and I met his dad, Jules, and set up a few play dates so that all the boys could get together again to play.

Catch me if you can!

The “other” park within walking distance. The boys didn’t even want to explore this one after playing on the other one.

One day we took the metro and hooked up with Jules and Miles at Parc du Florale.  It was acres of play space with tall slides, a zip line just for kids, a rope structure in the shape of the Eiffel Tower, logs to walk along, swings and more.  We would walk a little ways, stop and play and then keep walking and play on something else.  It was awesome!  We had to pry the boys away at the end of the afternoon and it was a fantastic way to end our time in Paris.

Slides!

Even Richard climbed this thing!  James and Matthew are standing at the very top.

L