I have to join the "take them with you" team, although I do really understand the challenges of sightseeing and such with little ones.
I'm not sure why you see it as so difficult or a bad idea. Could you help us understand your concerns?
Take the nanny along, and let them do something kid-oriented while you take in the major sites. There are several books along the lines of "____ with kids".
Your six-year-old especially will benefit--absorbing different sensations than you do, and processing them as they relate to a six-year-olds understanding, but none the less integrating the experience into a broader world view. For example, I have vivid memories of visiting our gardener's village in Ethiopia as they were preparing for a wedding in his family. As I look back now, I get an intellectual sense of the financial poverty they lived under, but that wasn't what hit me at six. I thought the kids were lucky not to have to wear all the clothes in that heat that I had to wear. The chickens were cool! I made a sling for my doll that matched the ones my peers used to carry their younger sibs. And I know what a mud hut really looks like. It's the emotional connections that really last, and what endures for me is the overwhelming sense of joy those people had. And "they're mostly just like me". The intellectual (eg. poverty) I applied to those images as I grew up.
If you choose to stay for a longer period of time, I'd even encourage you to consider putting your kids in the local school, particularly when they're young. You're certainly able to fill in any gaps they might experience between what the local schools teach and what they'd learn in US schools. And the experience is priceless. (My two eldest attended yochien-Japanese preschool- while we were there with their dad's military service-and it was a marvelous way to integrate with the community.)
Travelling anywhere with kids is more complicated than with just two adults, but you can do it, especially since you're in the financial position to take child care with you. That would let you all have family time, and still have adult adventure time as well.
Bon voyage!  |