What’s in Our Hand Luggage for a Long Haul Flight?!?

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We are a weird family for a number of reasons; one is the fact that we all like to travel and enjoy the long haul flights. From our perspective, my husband and I enjoy the time to just sit back and relax, watch movies, eat, read books, play cards, do some visualization and sometimes have an uninterrupted cuddle (well I always give it a try). Life is so busy, its nice to have some ‘forced relaxation time’. The kids enjoy it too, our daughter is the most laid back person (aside from Ahmed) that I have ever met in my life; she literally is so Zen, its unbelievable. Sometimes I wonder where she came from lol, that is not a trait that I or anyone on my side of the family have, so it must be from Ahmed. Our son on the other hand, boy oh boy! That is a different story all together, he lives life at 100% all day, every day… If you read some of the previous blogs, you will get a flavor of his vibe! Read with Caution; your head will spin. Considering they are so different, they are also similar in so many ways… (1) Neither of them appreciate all my kisses and cuddles (2) neither of them want to sit next to me on the plane (3) they’re both funny and very respectful of other people (4) both love shopping and being with family.

We decided to pack a little differently this time, with ‘getting through security’ in mind; we tried to be a little strategic and see if we could save a little time at security by puting all technology (the heavy stuff) in my husbands hang luggage and the toiletries in my hand luggage. The aim of this is to reduce the number of people having to remove things from their bags at security. The kids should be able to just put their bags in the black trays and not remove any of their items, leading to quicker processing time for the Jalloh family.

We had the ‘grown up stuff’ in my hand luggage; like passports, copies of our visas, birth and marriage certificates etc. We would not normally take birth and marriage certificates and such documents if we were going on holiday, but this time it was different. We were actually moving to the other side of the world; this was not a visit, this was a new chapter and we could not afford to lose these documents.

Mum: I like to think of the flight as a great opportunity to relax and to make sure I look after my body and mind during the 23 hours in the sky. With this in mind, I pack items that will help me feel good inside and out during and after the flights. Some of the essentials include; face and body wash, Astra cream, Vaseline, deodorant, an empty 1.2lr water bottle, tooth paste and brush, underwear, flannel, charger and scarf (I am always cold on planes).

For entertainment, I download a new playlist to my phone and have invested in some quality Sony noise cancelling headphones. I have also downloaded a new audio book called why mummy swears. After reading why mummy drinks, I can not wait to start listening to this one, 12 hours of laughs… I also take a paperback book to read on the flight too, just in case technology fails me. This time I am taking Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine. I have started reading this book already and I am a third of the way through and totally hooked. I am at the part were she is visiting Raymond’s mum for the first time.

Laptop for blogging and my camera for capturing the precious moments.

Dad

As always, we have over packed! I believe, in general, people always over pack for trips because they try to cater for every eventuality! In my bag we had:

• My MacBook Air 💻
• 3 of my reading books 📖
• 4 power banks to charge phones and iPads
• 1 iPad
• 1 Nintendo Switch
• An array of wires for our phones and gadgets – all tangled
• A set of playing cards ♠️
• My headphones, which had their own case as large as book 🎧
• Some overflow of toiletries 🧴

We only used one third of these things as most of the time was spent sleeping, watching a movie, for a second time, eating or going to the porter-loos!

Now, did we use all these thing. Nope! Did we need all these things? In our minds, yes we did!

Daughter

Our daughter only had one thing in mind when packing!

Have I got all my make up? 💄

Yup.

Ok, all good to go!

Son
As usual, I overpacked for J Boy and made sure I had more than enough in his bag to keep him busy.

I packed a mixture of games, technology and snacks in the hope to keep him entertained and happy for the duration of the flight…

Ask me… go on ask….. what did he use? What did he do on the flight? He used NOTHING! This guy stayed awake and watched inflight movies all through the night and had to to told to go to sleep. The rest of the time he entertained himself with the bright lights at the airports.

This goes to show, sometimes we can over plan for the simple things in life.

Peace, Love and Happiness

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