Easter Holidays...I'm back!

We've been away since Thursday on our usual Easter holiday. I think the last time we didn't spend Easter at my parents in the Lake District was the year I had Erin (April baby!). It's always a bit hectic as all my family live up there, so most of our time is spent catching up with them.

Erin & Orla spent a morning at the Pencil Museum. They love drawing and took part in some Easter crafting. I was so impressed with the rabbits they made:

My Aunty and Niece took them both out for a walk to the lake, which wouldn't be the same without ice cream

and left me free to go to a shop I love, Lakeland! As well as having a lovely lunch in their cafe, their Pea & Ham soup is gorgeous, I picked up these lovely Easter decorations. They were 99p for 4 and I bought two packs. They did a pack of 9 for £1.99 but they were stripy and I preferred the flower design.

Can you see them? Here's a close up

 

Easter Holiday Fun

I like to take each day as it comes during the holidays, with the exception of when we go away from home. It's nice to be able to do things based on how the kids feel, how tired they are, etc.

This week I decided that I'd take the kids to Eureka one day. I think it's a great place for kids, very hands on and interactive but there's one problem I have with it...the Initial Outlay Factor. You see their entrance price allows you to return as many times as you like for a year, which is great but it also means that for the kids and I it's almost £24 to get in (add on another £9.95 if my husband comes too). Spread over a year that's not bad at all, you might even call it a bargain....but you still have to find that one day when you don't mind paying out that much in one go. Not to mention the car park is not free. In fact I took the train because at £5.10 return it was cheaper than paying £6 for parking (never mind the fuel saving too).

Anyway, the point of the post is that it was definitely worth making that leap because both kids loved it. Off we went on TWO trains to get there. It's very important I tell you it was TWO trains because the kids were so excited about it - most of our train journeys are a single train into the city centre. We were lucky and managed to get a table seat on the Halifax train (both there and back) so I wasn't squashed up with both kids. They loved looking out of the window and going through the tunnels.

There was a bit of a queue on arrival but far shorter than I've seen in the past and the kids didn't mind waiting at all. The first thing they wanted to do was play in the mini M&S shop. It was busy so they had to make do with baskets rather than trolleys but they had loads of fun and it was a struggle to get Orla to move on once Erin wanted to do something else.

With it being the holidays there were some special activities on. The kids made swords and jellyfish and coloured/decorated some fish. Orla left some of hers there on the wall but Erin brought all hers home (she wanted a picture of her pretending to leave it there!).

They loved dressing up and Orla loved the telephone!

My favourite bit was in the theatre. The room had been set up to look like an underwater world. A member of staff was dressed as a mermaid and there were dressing up clothes for the children as well as other stuff to play with. Hanging on the wall was this quilt, that I had to run over and have a good look at!