Flying to Ireland

Like many parents with a young child we really weren't too excited about flying for nearly 24 hours but it had to be done. Eoin woke up extra early on the morning we flew, very excited about going on a plane. Our cab got us a 6am and our journey began.

We had to change in Chicago and although we thought we had a comfortable amount of time to change terminals and grab food it turned out that 2.5 hours was well just a tiny bit tight but it all worked out.

Eoin only slept for an hour on our first flight and so I was hopeful that our second and longer flight might be more peaceful. We were over the moon when we discovered that Aer Lingus had upgraded their planes and each seat now had it's own tv screen. That kept Eoin occupied for a while and then we tried to settle him down for sleep. Having his own seat was a plus but he got really grumpy because he wanted to lay down flat and he couldn't. All in all we got about four hours sleep from him on that flight.

We arrived in Dublin and got through immigration very quickly. I had taught Eoin to say 'Slan' (bye in Irish) to the immigration guard which made everyone smile. Uncle Peter met us at the airport which was a god send as he played with Eoin while we sorted out the car hire (a huge thank you to Enterprise for helping us out!).

We decided to head to the beach for a quick run around and to fly our kite. We couldn't check into our hotel yet as it was still before mid day and we also thought it might help Eoin to run around for a while. Despite the freezing cold Eoin had a blast flying his kite and hiding in the sand dunes. The jet lag was pretty bad for us all so we ended our first day with an early dinner with Uncle Peter and Uncle Chris.