When we had the chance to take a trip to Aruba sin our Niño’s, believe me, we jumped.   Thanks to wonderful friends who took great care of them, we set off on a worry free long weekend to discover the Caribbean island just 16 miles off Venezuela.

From the flight in, I could see that amazing turquoise water.  I have never seen water this color, at times, it didn’t look real.   We stayed at the Renaissance in Oranjestad, who have the only private beach in Aruba.  I had seen many photos of flamingo beach and I couldn’t wait to go check it out for myself.

I apologize for the flamingo overload that is about to happen.

This was by far my favorite part of Aruba.  It was so relaxing, it felt like we were somewhere exotic and we basically chilled many hours away.

For the adventure portion, we took a trail ride though the Arikok National Park, seeing the arid desert and cactus landscape all the way down to the rocky shores of the island.    It was peaceful and beautiful, one of us may have enjoyed it slightly more than the other.  But the other is a champ and I love him.

For the rest of the time, we did some city exploring, shopping,  day-drinking, and lots of eating.  We made sure to waste some hours in a hammock and caught up on some R&R.

What can I say?  It was the perfect getaway.  Such a friendly, clean and mellow island, even our taxi drivers were happy to make conversation.  Seeing that we were not too far away to begin with, our travel days didn’t eat too far into our vacation time.   I sure do hope we get back to Aruba one day.