"Shall we go to Paris?" asked Julie. 

"Paris is always a good idea" I replied, using someone else's famous phrase.

So, (months later obviously), we left work at lunchtime, on the second attempt having left my bag with the passports and money in the office!

The weather was atrocious, with heavy rain and the spray from the road making the driving intense. We stopped at the Chester services for which has become a holiday tradition to have a bite to eat at Leon and a cheeky glass of prosecco for Julie.

We parked up at the airport's short stay car park and walked to the terminal where we were an hour early to check-in our luggage. It was a lot busier than normal so after eventually dropping our suitcase off we paid the £5 each to fast-track ourselves through the security gates.

It felt like we were royalty. I was half expecting a red carpet!

Within 10 minutes we were airside, buying champagne and Tolberone as we always do.

Our flight wasn't scheduled to leave until 6:35pm which meant we would be arriving late at our hotel and finding somewhere to eat would be difficult.  So we decided to have an early supper at the airport.

Our usual go-to at Manchester's terminal 3 was Giraffe restaurant but today it was closed. Cafe Balzar was only offering a very limited menu of bacon butties, so we ended up in the Grain Loft pub.  

It was strange to be back so soon. It was only three weeks ago we flew to Rome with the Jones'. This time we went to the correct departure gate!

The flight took off on time, more or less, and we headed South as the sun set. Julie was especially anxious, more than usual. She struck up a conversation with a young girl sat next to us. She was from Cameroon, now living in Manchester and travelling to Paris for a friend's wedding. We even got to see a photo of the dress she was going to wear!

She was wonderfully charming and distracted Julie for the remainder of the flight.

It was only a short flight, less than an hour and a half.

Getting through passport control and collecting our luggage was quick and easy. We then had the long trek from terminal 2 to the shuttle train across to terminal 3.

Because it was late in the day we had already decided to book a hotel at the airport. It was a good idea because it was almost 10pm when we found the Ibis Styles hotel, across the way to the Pulman.

They both looked very futuristic in their design by the way they were illuminated. 

The sci-fi vibe continued inside the Ibis as it had this Star Wars theme everywhere you looked. Images of stormtroopers adorned the walls, all the signs were in a digital font and even the door to our room looked like it could swish open to the side.

It didn't stop there. Our room had a great view of the moon! It felt like we were staying on the Death Star!

It was the strangest hotel we had ever stayed in.