Our first family holiday as a 3 was to the gorgeous Dominican Republic which we had booked a good year in advance using our BA air miles. Unfortunately on the run up to the holiday Thomas had been a little under the weather with temperatures and missed Jakes christening the day before, so we took him to out of hours at the hospital to check him over and just as well as he had a throat infection so needed some penicillin. Sunday we left at 10.45 and got to airpor...

We arrived back in Rio around 2ish on the Sunday it seemd to take forever and we were the last stop. We got dropped at our hostel in Ipanema, it was called Rio Hostel and they couldn't find our booking and it took forever to sort out as they had no internet. We should of taken this as a warning sign...We set off to visit the Christ Redeemer which is on the Corcovado mountain (its about 2,000ft+ high) and it was a beautiful day. It was completed in 1931 after 5 ye...

Very tired and very early we headed off for our bus and boat ride. It took 2 hours on the bus and then we waited an hour and the boat took about 1.5 hours. We got to the island about half 9. We found our little hostel which was called Studio Beach and was run by a Brazilian guy who was so sweet and welcoming and spoke not a word of English. The day was gorgeous when we arrived so after some breakfast I headed to sit on the beach for a few hours and read... It was...

The next day Ellen and Rachel arrived about 11am so we headed off to the Brazil Iguazu side on the bus. When we got there we paid 37 real for the ticket and got on a bus to go to the main walking path down to the Devils Throat. The path was an easy walk and there were some great shots to show the whole of the falls which were really amazing. You don't realise how many there are and how big they are until you look from this side. We took some pictures on the path ...

Our next stop was Puerto Iguazu which was one of the the gateways to the very famous Iguassu Falls. We arrived at 12 lunchtime and I could instantly tell we were back in the tropics and it felt great. There was so much greenery everywhere and there was heat. HEAT I tell you. After so much cold weather it was brilliant to have some sun again. We were staying at the Hostel Inn which was a YHA hostel and it was lovely. There was a massive pool and it was situated on...