London is Not Calling

I have just realized that despite the fact that one of my most recent posts was about making your kids do stuff even when they don’t want to (the character building and all that), we have just let them write off our trip to London. I think I am a hypocrite. Or I’m just being lazy. Or smart. Or all of the above.
The story is, we were planning a little trip to London, just three nights, one day to do The Globe and a few other bits, another for the bus tour around the cities main attractions, and the other at the Warner Brothers Harry Potter Studio Tour. Then the kids got wind of it, and although they wanted to go to the Studio, they whined about the rest. Which they often do.
Now, normally, we don’t care about the whining. We try to ignore it, and go anyway, and they either tolerate, or actually enjoy, whatever it is we are doing. We are doing these things for them, after all.
But this time, we just caved. The gist of our decision making conversation centered around the fact that we were spending a lot of money to go down there for three days, and they were just so done with cities, they had no interest in going, and it really was for them this time. We have been before. In fact, we took our two oldest down for the Olympic triathlon in August, so even they have been…etc etc. So, we just ditched. We are still driving down to do the Studio Tour since our tickets were already booked, but no overnight. And no Big Ben. Or Buckingham Palace. Or Globe Theatre. Or Picadilly Circus.
I feel hoodwinked somehow. Like I just didn’t notice what was happening here. We gave in, and it is a slippery slope. Good thing I noticed now so I can avoid such blatant manipulation in future. This trip is not about the kids having a good time, after all, it’s about forcing them to do stuff they don’t want to do. Or they don’t think they want to do.
Oh well, we will be in England again in the future…maybe they will appreciate it more when they’re older…