WE ARE sipping white wine on a balmy evening, as the sun sets over the high peaks of the Bavarian Alps in Austria. Dinner on the hotel terrace, an organic carvery and piles of fresh salad, is eaten at the unhurried pace my husband and I once took for granted before becoming parents.
Upstairs, our two-year-old son sleeps under the watchful eye of a nanny. He is exhausted after spending the day, his second birthday, splashing naked in a sparklingly clean lake, feeding hay to ponies and riding an array of bikes, tractors and trucks, all without leaving the hotel's grounds.
An idyllic day such as this encapsulates the ethos of our hotel, part of the Kinderhotels group, where childcare is not just one of the facilities on offer, it's the star attraction.
Familien Erlebnis Hotel zur Post sits just beyond the German-Austrian border, a 40-minute drive from Salzburg airport, in the pretty town of Unken. The Kinderhotels concept is popular among families from mainland Europe, who all seem to know something British holidaymakers don't, and their baby- and child-friendly hotels are scattered around Austria, Germany and Italy.
Like many parents, we were daunted by the prospect of travelling overseas with a toddler and all that entails, but we knew we had chosen well on the free airport transfer to our hotel, as we took in the soaring pines and the breathtaking waterfalls, the rocky mountain peaks and the chocolate-box villages.
Then, on arrival, it became clear that Tom, not his parents, was the VIP of the trip, when he was presented with his own toy. We spent our first afternoon taking in the sheer scale of the grounds. Outside we sampled the huge play park with sandpits and a lake filled with water toys, and fed the ponies and llamas at the stables. We managed a tour round the village on bikes with Tom in a baby carrier, pedalling past rivers and meadows. Then we had a brief visit to the soft-play area, the video arcade, games room and the two pools. The in-house cinema showed two films daily, one for children and one in the evening for the mums and dads, while the tranquil spa offered a high standard of body treatments.
Our ultra-modern family suite had its own living area, as well as a separate bunk-bedded children's room. Tom loved the night light, the snuggly duvet and the brightly patterned carpet. I loved the changing mat, the ample wardrobe space and the hatch that opened out on to the main room, which meant we could keep an eye on him.
And we barely packed any of the usual array of baby equipment most parents dread loading up their suitcases with. The hotel provided buggies, baby monitors, bibs, cups, and even a buffet of organic baby purées and children's meals.
While Tom ate heartily from the children's teatime buffet - a choice of tasty treats from chicken nuggets and chips to pasta, veggies, salads and fruit - we saved ourselves for a later sitting, when a babysitter would arrive at our room. I had never given much thought of Austrian cuisine - beyond schnitzel with noodles - but we were impressed by the choice and the quality.
We felt confident enough to put Tom into the well-equipped nursery for a few hours while we went to Salzburg. He settled in well with the English-speaking nannies and a gaggle of new German friends.
We decided against the Sound of Music Tour, an afternoon coach ride to many of the movie's locations. Instead, we joined a whistle-stop walking tour of the city - Mozart's birthplace and a Unesco World Heritage Site - taking in its cathedral, baroque Mirabell Gardens and winding narrow streets of the Old City, filled with chocolate shops.
The following day was strictly family, as Tom celebrated his second birthday. After an outrageous breakfast of Smarties and chocolate cake, the table draped with streamers, and a round of 'Happy Birthday' from the staff and other young guests, we ventured out to the lake.
Despite the somewhat chilly temperature of the water, he was determined to join some other brave souls. We were a little unprepared, so wearing nothing but his sun hat he spent the morning splashing around.
It took major persuasion to get him out but was worth it for our afternoon's adventure hiking up an alpine trail, Tom bouncing in a backpack borrowed from the hotel's vast storeroom of all things baby-related. High tea was an open-air farmers' buffet of sausage, cheeses and thick, buttered bread, washed down with beer and Apfelsaft.
Then Tom and his daddy had some fun in the play park, making sandcastles and going in the pirate ship, while I had a blissful aromatherapy massage in the hotel's spa. For those who are more tempted by the thought of a sauna, be warned - the Austrians, like Tom in the lake, do these things naked.
One thing I had feared about a child-oriented holiday was spending so much time in the close proximity of that unknown quantity - other people's children. There was also a danger, I suspected, that the adults' holiday would be compromised by the child's. But this was a holiday where the children's fun allowed the parents to have their break - not just enough time for the typical quick spa massage or a snatched meal together we have had on other breaks, but for a week-long catch-up on lie-ins, long lunches and blockbuster holiday novels.
The only real brushes we had with other people's kids were the occasional fight over buckets and spades, and the wails and tantrums that would reverberate around the terraces from 6pm onwards as children were dragged from the swings to their baths and beds.
But it's amazing how easily you can block out these noises by the simple act of sharing a bottle of crisp Austrian wine in the sunset, all the better for knowing it's not your child who's howling and it's not you who has to deal with it.
Fact file: Austria
Kinderhotels do all-inclusive seven-day family holidays from £546 (family of three). For information and bookings, call 0845 0822 422 or visit
www.kinderhotels.co.uk.
