If you couldn’t tell from the previous post, my aunt and uncle have a beautiful little home. My aunt is an artist, my uncle a builder, and their house is situated in the most quintessentially picture-perfect small New England town, on a hill, next to a river, and surrounded by mountains.

It’s sad to know that it won’t always be just a few hours away.

But we did have a nice weekend, and an equally nice drive back home.

First stop: breakfast at the Dam Diner.

And before we rolled on out of Vermont for good, we stopped in at the Northshire Bookstore.

Hannah browsed the graphic novels, Lexi picked up a couple books, and I bought A Clash of Kings (in the hopes that I will manage to finish A Game of Thrones sometime in the not-to-distant future)

And then we were off.

Did you know that we can add maple syrup to anything? It’s a New England superpower.

(and, yes, I thought it was pretty darn tasty)

Home. It’s always nice to come back.

Cruising Vermont’s back roads in a classic convertible: best thing ever? Pretty close.

On our way back we stopped to check out a waterfall. Stephen, Hannah and Uncle Jim decided to walk all the way out along the train tracks to peer down into the river gorge. Lexi and I declined on the basis of sheer terror. I’m okay with that choice.

On Saturday morning we went tubing down the river. Not wanting a repeat of the last excursion, I didn’t take any photos of us battling the rapids. And battle them we did.

The river run was exhilarating and exhausting, and left us limping around for days.

Worth it? Totally.

I have to say, though, that the very best part of Saturday (possibly of the whole weekend) was all of us piling into the big bed to spend a lazy morning watching TV. Nothing to do and nowhere to be, except for together. Absolutely fabulous.