Yeah. It's fine if you just tell him that they're going somewhere special and let that be the surprise and try to keep him distracted from thinking about it too much during the ride. Maybe I'm just soft, but I feel like that "Looks like we're almost home!" is him having anxiety because he knows that something is wrong, but he's not ready to just tell his parents that they are obviously lying and so he doesn't know what to do or say.

Whatever. I mean it's fine, it's in no way traumatic or anything. I'm just saying how I feel like people should be to people who look up to them, as a general rule.