Internet access on holiday

This has probably been covered elsewhere so apologies if i've missed it. My question concerns economic internet access in Italy for when we are resident in our house in Sicily. We get over six or seven times a year with 6-8 weeks between visits.If we load a tablet sim card on a pre-pay basis it costs 5 euros a week or a similarly reasonable figure for a month. The problem is that it deactivates itself if it's not used for more than a month. So we have to pay a reactivation charge each time we go on holiday to get the sim card working again so that we can re-charge it. It's only a few euros but it take ages for the TIM staff to get through to mission control to approve the reactivation. We have to re-enact this ritual pretty much every time we go on holiday.To avoid this hassle, I'd be happy to take out an annual plan (there are annual packages available for under 100 euros) but they tell me the same thing will happen- automatic deactivation if it's not used for a month. The other alternative, obviously, is to use a UK based card which works out more expensive and is charged by the day.I'm sure I'm missing some obvious solution. Please tell me what it is! Thanks.