While beautifully quaint, this Scottish building boasts of all the creaks and groans of any antiquity.
Well, I thought I’d report back on the retreat/ “weekend away.” I knew it would be all right when there were no name tags. In fact, the weekend away was more than good- it really was great. We live in Scotland, so any kind of road trip is a sight to behold and the hour and a half trip south of Aberdeen (our city) to Arbroath was a lovely one. While I remembered every snack available to man and the portable DVD player, I did of course forget the actual DVDs, a mistake my children did not appreciate at all.
Regardless, we made it to the Windmill Christian Centre and immediately enjoyed the view of the coast and the peaceful surroundings I highly recommend this facility by the way). It is one large building with 3 or 4 stories and perfected suited for such an event. The retreat director was thoughtful enough to put our family of 4 further away from the activity hub, but we still had 45 Uni students running up and down the stairs right outside our door, as well as across the hall to the bathroom at all hours of the night. As I mentioned I would, I brought 2 sound machines in case we split the kids somehow. Our goal was to cover the college kid noises, as well as the soft little coughs and sighs so typical of small children (yet still distracting to adults trying to sleep). As it turned out, there was an en-suite bathroom (unusual for Scotland), so we put our son in a pack n play in there as he is the youngest (21 months) and the rest of us stayed in the main room. We set up both white noise generators at opposite ends of the room, and I can testify that they worked! Even when our daughter woke up in a coughing fit at 4am, that natural white noise (water fall) washed over my son as if he were in paradise- and indeed he was- blissfully unaware of anything other than sweet rest. We all slept in and had a great time!
I will say how funny it was to explain to a British man what white noise is. He was sure it was just another “American thing,” but his kid did not sleep until 8, did he? 
Similarly, we had another family use our flat while we were away. They have just arrived from the States and are still jet-lagging with their 2 small children. The father’s comment was, “Man that noise thing really works! My son was finally able to get some much-needed rest.” Need I say more? (except maybe that the retreat god has been assuaged. What a relief.”
