[throwaway201103]

I mean, there are summer camps for kids who are old enough, grandparents if you have them and they are willing to take the kids for a week or two, but the thing is even the "vacation" is not the same as your life before kids. You're always still thinking about them, always ultimately responsible for them. Having kids is a fork in the road. There is no going back to the old path, even temporarily. The closest you will get is when your kids are adults themselves, but even then it's not the same.

[mlyle]

Yah, I'm nowhere near even those levels of taking a break, though. Only one grandparent left and he's not up to take 3 rambunctious boys at once, and the youngest is 6 so there's not great stay-away camp opportunities.

We were going to have two of them go away to Johns Hopkins-CTY this summer, but it didn't happen (for obvious reasons).

Maybe summer 2021 I'll get a week or two partially off :D