The Sorriest Playground

One of our favorite things to do with our children is what we've dubbed, The Playground Crawl. We love to explore new cities by going on a little tour of their playgrounds and hopping from place to place with random stops for coffees for the adults and ice cream for everyone. We've happily toured Stockholm and Lyon in this manner and were looking forward to discovering the plentiful playgrounds of Hoboken. We had only a few days to share between Hoboken, NJ and Manhattan before we flew back to Stockholm at the end of our vacation and we figured a scenic Playground Crawl of Hoboken's finest play spaces was the best way to finish up our vacation.

Hoboken has some of the most scenic playgrounds I have ever seen. It is such a family friendly city, in close commuting distance to NYC, and the playgrounds were top notch. There were spongy recycled tire shreds/sneaker rubber used as a soft crash pad that replaced dirt in most areas, the play equipment was new and in good condition and the views were incredible. Most playgrounds had a nice smattering of shade provided by beautifully tall trees and they all had a water feature of some sort to help the children cool off a bit and splash around. I did a quick survey and determined that neither of my children would ever be able to hurt themselves in this environment and settled on a nearby bench to finally relax and enjoy my coffee.

And that's when I first heard it..."Sorry!"

It was the first, but certainly not the last, unnecessary apology I heard that morning. Once you start hearing something, your ears seek it out and you just can't stop hearing it.