Our First Adventure of 2015

So its a New Year and new adventure in the Muddy Monsters household. Mr MM had disappeared on a "work" trip, which just happens to involve a few days skiing in France so I'm home alone with the boys. What is a mum to do?

Well... I didn't want to spend the whole weekend at home with the boys glued to the TV or various technical devices that suck conversation out of the room, so I plotted a trip away for us. Now as a family we love a spot of camping but its January... and there is snow on the ground... and its windy so getting the tent out is a no no. But I did find a fabulous alternative.

In some of my misspent youth, I did stay in one or two Youth Hostels in my day. So I decided to look on the website and see what they had to offer. Gone are the days of dark dorms with rickety bunk beds and chilly tiptoeing down corridors to visit the loo. Instead hosteling as a family we had a private en suite room which has key card access, sturdy bunks and room for our belongings. The Boys loved it!
We chose the hostel in Whitby because its only about an hour and thirty minutes from our home base in Leeds, it is right next door to Whitby Abbey and in fact our stay included free entry. There is free parking at the hostel but space is limited and on a first come first served basis. There are passes available for some spots a 2 minute walk away and the Abbey car park is a further 5 minutes away.

The boys chilling out on their bunk.

                                             
From the novelty of a wonky staircase, a large friendly playroom with lots of toys (and a new friend for my youngest) to the horror of having to wash and dry our dinner items by hand for the eldest, the whole weekend was great fun, and gave me and the boys some lovely quality time together. I "may" have been given a wifi code at reception by the friendly staff manning the desk, but I must have accidentally on purpose misplaced it as none of the tech was logged on for the weekend and instead we immersed ourselves in a few heated rounds of battleships.

Battleship Wars! Game on.

Near the top of the wonky staircase, it does seem to lean.

Hot Chocolate in the self catering kitchen area and practising our reading.

The hostel does have a restaurant for breakfast and evening meals but on this visit we decided to do it ourselves. You just plonk readily available stickers on your food and pop it in one of the fridges or freezers handily dotted around the kitchen. We had no problem finding room anywhere, although I did make the rookie mistake of putting all our fridge items in a freezer by mistake which resulted in ice milk for my cup of tea and having to defrost the hot dogs before serving up the boys dinner - oops!

As for Whitby itself we happened to visit on a VERY blustery weekend. On our arrival at the hostel after we checked in and dumped our gear we attempted a walk into town but Bear was blown over twice and we were in danger of taking off into the great unknown "Wizard of Oz Style" so quickly headed back into the safety of Whitby YHA. 

This is how close the hostel is to Whitby Abbey. Wrapped up warm.

Jake is holding on to the telescope to stop himself taking off.

We stayed at Whitby YHA at the end of January for one night and you don't need to be a member to book.

 www.yha.org.uk/hostel/whitby