Ahhhhh...Paradise!

Those were the first words out of our mouths as Bryan and I arrived in Aruba for out first extended vacation since before I was pregnant with the triplets. Needless to say, we were MUCH over due for a relaxing vacation away just the two of us:-) We decided on a six day trip to Aruba in the southern carribean and it was AMAZING! It is a beautiful place and we felt completely safe everywhere we went. Here are some (ok, alot of) pictures from the trip:

We stayed at the Marriott Rennaisance Marina in Oranjestad and it was perfect! One of the reason we chose this resort was that it has a private island that a boat takes you to when ever you want to go. The boat actually comes into the hotel lobby to pick you up as you can see here:

Here is a view from the beach at the private island...paradise:-)

Bryan and I liked to sit out at the end of this penninsula...sooooo relaxing!

Here is one of the iguanas that live on the island...you actually see these all over Aruba.

Here is our hotel as you go in on the boat.

Heading back from a "rough" day of relaxing on the island;-)

As you come to the island from the boat...

We decided to have a really nice dinner at the amazing place called Pinchos. The restaurant is at the end of this pier so you are completely surrounded by water. It was a beautiful dinner and we got to watch the sunset as you can see in the next picture...

On our last full day there, we decided to rent a car to tour the island. It was super cheap to do but we quickly found out that was because of the type of car. Thank goodness my first car was stick shift or we would have been out of luck! Driving was definitely interesting there but I am so glad we did it.

Here are some ruins from the ancient tribes on the island.

Here I am at the Natural Bridge...well what used to be a natural bridge. It actually collapsed into the water about 2 years ago but it was still an amazing sight to see!

Bryan and a huge cactus! Aruba is actually a desert climate so there are cactus everywhere.

Here we are at the top of the rock formations...it was a great view of the island!

Here I am with the infamous car..I had to include this picture;-)

Bryan feeding the flamingos that lived on the private island...they were such cool birds and super friendly with the people!

Unfortunately, this one got scared of the storm that had come through earlier and flew out into the ocean...it was quite entertaining watching the workers round this bird up:-)

This was our last view of the island as we prepared to leave for home. As you can see, a big storm was coming in so it made it a little easier to leave. Well that and the fact that after 6 days we were definitely ready to get back to our three little munchkins:-D