Every year, the royal family visits Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip at Balmoral Castle in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, for a brief summer vacation. This year, however, three key figures have opted to forgo the 93-year-old queen’s invitation: Meghan Markle, Prince Harry and their 4-month-old son Archie.
Although the Sussex family was expected to join the queen, along with Prince William, Kate Middleton, Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles, at the summer estate this year, People reports that they have decided against it.
The reason? There’s just too much going on in their lives at the moment and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex see Gan Gan on a fairly regular basis anyway since they live just a five-minute walk from her Windsor Castle abode.
The Duchess of Sussex is set to mark her first post-maternity-leave event this upcoming Thursday, during which she’ll unveil her brand-new capsule collection that will benefit her patronage Smart Works. (The charity focuses on dressing and coaching unemployed women for success in the workplace.) She also just made a last-minute trip to New York to watch her close friend Serena Williams compete in the U.S. Open tennis finals. Furthermore, Markle and Prince Harry are preparing for their upcoming royal tour of Africa, which is set to kick off in just two weeks (!), on September 20. The trip will be baby Archie’s first tour as a working royal…unless you count the Oceania tour he accompanied his parents on in utero.
