Vacation, all I ever wanted...

This week we received a piece of mail from Disney addressed to our "family."  It's like Disney was aware we were with child and was already cashing in on the hundreds of dollars they will most certainly get from us during Half-pint's lifetime or at least her childhood.  Don't get me wrong...I went to Disney World as a little girl, and I have every intention of taking our children there, too, but let's wait until the kiddo is out of the womb.  Or maybe let's wait until she's old enough to know what's going on, too, when she's at the park. 


Despite the bad timing of Disney's advertisement, T and I have been talking about starting a tradition of taking annual vacations as a family.  In previous years, we haven't really done that just the two of us.  Any "vacations" we have taken have either been to visit out of town family or tagging along with my parents somewhere.  And while that's all fun and well and good, etc., it's not what we want to do every single year.  Now that we have a little one on the way, we want to start taking vacations - just us.   One of those vacations will definitely involve a visit to Disney in the future (Be ready, Sprite's Keeper!)  This year, however, we're a little low on funds and vacation days (thanks unpaid maternity leave!), and well, Half-pint is going to be pretty little still.  But we're still determined to do some sort of mini vacation.  I think we deserve it after this year, don't you? 


So right now, our destinations are limited...within driving distances, of course.  We're leaning towards St. Louis but have absolutely no idea of what we would want to do there, where to stay, etc.  So anyone who has been to St. Louis or has any good ideas of nice Midwest destinations, do share!    What does your family do for vacations?  Is it important to have that time to get away as a family and just explore?