Far away

I'm in the Zurich airport waiting for a flight to Reykjavik, Iceland, for a conference. This week I'm away from home for 10 days - longer than any of us parents have been away from the kids since we moved to Germany. Usually I'm away Mon-Wed these days.

So far, the kids are doing pretty well with all my travelling, though sometimes they do miss me a lot. Oscar likes to talk about exactly where everyone is and when exactly I'm coming back (or someone else is visiting). Clara just kind of takes it all in stride - but then when I'm there, I can tell that it's hard on her, too (and Monday mornings have sometimes been trouble).

When I'm in Konstanz, this is the view from my office (the little guy visits sometimes):

And this is the view from the airplane on the way home (I fly late, so the sun was just going down and the moon was really big over the horizon):

When I'm home in Berlin, I'm either trying to work from home - when I can reach my laptop keyboard, that is:

Or we're spending our weekends in fun ways. Of the following 3 photos, the first was taken before I made funny faces at the kids:

At the Museum für Verkehr und Technik:

Last night on the phone, Oscar asked me: "Mommy, can you write my name?"
Me: "Well, yes I CAN..." (thinking... but I'm 800km away! How would you even know?) .... "Why don't you write it yourself?"
O: "But I can't draw an S! .... then I'll write O - A - R."
Me: "But what about the S and C?" O, slightly whiny: "But I can't draw an S! .... then I'll write O - C - A - R!"