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Austria’s nine-week school summer break is a joy for children, but for many working parents it means a patchwork of camps, annual leave, grandparents, home office and careful budgeting.

For around 239,000 pupils in Vienna and thousands more in the rest of Austria, the summer holidays began with report cards, relief and weeks of freedom ahead.

For many parents, however, the start of Austria’s long school break also marks the beginning of a familiar logistical problem: how to cover nine weeks of holidays with far fewer weeks of annual leave.

The problem is especially tricky for international families who often don't have grandparents nearby, cannot rely on extended family in Austria, or are still learning how the system of camps, Hort, kindergarten closures and city-run programmes works.

A recent representative survey by Marketagent, based on 1,000 people in Austria, found that 49 percent consider the nine-week summer holidays too long, while 43 percent think they are exactly right.

According to the survey, 84 percent believe the long summer holidays create major organisational pressure for many families, and 89 percent say the period is hard for working parents to manage.

READ ALSO: Are the Austrian summer holidays simply too long for parents?

For parents who answered The Local’s reader callout, one strategy came up again and again: patchwork.

Cristina, a Spanish parent who has lived in Vienna for 12 years and has an eight-year-old daughter, said the summer is covered through a mix of holiday leave and paid care.