After getting about 3.5 hours of sleep, we got packed, said goodbye to our new friends, and took a cab from our hotel to one of the train stations in Lyon. This was interesting as the platform for any given train is not announced until about 15-20 minutes before departure so there is significant clamor for the more popular routes, including ours. Cargo space is somewhat limited and is first come first serve. We were a little early, but made it on to our train back to Paris. There were a noticeable number of Americans headed home. The train has a stop at CDG which was nice because getting through the security/customs lines took over an hour. We made it to our gate about 15 minutes before boarding. Once again the Air Canada staff and Economy Comfort seats made the 7 hour flight go by pretty quickly. We did immigration/customs into the US in Toronto. This was a very straightforward as we only had carry on luggage. We had a four hour layover before our departure to Orlando. We all started to really drag at this point as we had been up for 19 hours. Caleb, who had been a trooper the entire time, tapped out right before boarding. He was a sack of potatoes for the remainder of the trip home. The two hour flight back to Orlando was uneventful and we rolled out of our cab and back into our house after 1:00AM EST the morning of Friday July 5th.
The Cliffs notes version was that the trip was amazing. I'm so glad we decided to do it. I had some reservations about taking the kids but as stated previously, they both were fantastic and seemed to really enjoy it. I was also somewhat concerned about booking a trip with a travel group but this was definitely the right decision. I would use ProActive again and we will be keeping in touch with many of the people who were in our group. In addition, we found that the French people were very friendly and gracious. I would like to go back and spend some more time at the Louvre as well as more time in rural France.
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