Our Family Aliyah: Vacation!!!!

The kids after playing soccer at the beach

This year, to celebrate being in Israel for a year, and because I have always wanted to take a family beach vacation, we spent a week in Ashkelon. We stayed in a small AirBNB right near the beach. I considered getting a larger place (this place had only 2 bedrooms and only 1 bathroom) for 7 people, but the fact that the complex had a pool, and none of the other available apartments did, made it worth it to be a little squishy for a few days.

the view from our room

In the end, it was a benefit to have a small space. We all had to stay organized (which is not natural for any of the Treisters) and we all spent a lot of time together, which was nice.

My idea of a fun vacation is a time away where I have no plans. I know that many people have
different ideas of vacation, and many people like to schedule their trips to see and do exciting things. Well, we didn't do that. We went swimming the pool every day (it was open from 10 - 5 most days), sometimes twice. We would go to the park or the beach in the morning with the little kids (while the bigger ones slept). We ate at restaurants on the Marina (about a 3 minute walk from our apartment) and we also bought food from the grocery store.

Happily, Ashkelon has an Osher Ad (my favorite Israeli supermarket) about a 5 minute drive out of city limits and about a 15 minute drive from where we were staying. We went there several times, there was a fantastic bakery there, where we got bourekas and baguettes and pastries.

American Ninja Warrior at the beach

There was also a great Mall in Ashkelon which was much less expensive than Jerusalem. We were able to get the kids lots of new clothes for not a lot of money. We found skirts for the girls that were 8 for 100NIS.

another fun park

The parks in Ashkelon were out of this world. Three-story high slides, and tons of grass. The vibe I felt there was a cross between Newport Beach and Venice, with almost everything being kosher. Ashkelon was a founded in the 50's by Jews from South Africa and they created neighborhoods that feel very pleasant and residential, with lots of trees and flowers. More recently, many French immigrants have arrived, bringing with them better restaurants and cafes.

It's a growing city, there are building a LOT of new housing units in the next 5 years (I think something like 30,000), as well as a new technology park and new train station. It's about an hour to Tel Aviv on the train. Aryeh was able to go up to Tel Aviv one day to meet a friend.

I wanted to visit Tel Ashkelon (an archeological dig) as well as the state beach, but we had too much fun at the beaches near us. We rode bikes and scooters and had a blast.

Yaakov made a friend with the lifeguard at the pool and he gave him swimming lessons during our time there. He made a lot of progress toward being able to swim. He's not perfect at it, but he is getting a lot braver.

We rarely stay away from home for Shabbat, but we did this time in Ashkelon. We got amazing take out for Shabbat, the AirBNB had a plata with a timer, as well as candles. It is so different to vacation and travel in Israel than in the US. On Shabbat we took a walk around the neighborhood with some new friends. It was really beautiful.

Take a look at some of the pictures.