Every year we celebrate the boys half birthday. As their official birthday is right after Christmas and that sucks - we said that we would always do something on 27th June too to soften the blow. So we went to London! I really wanted to take them to see the dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum. So we drove down to Kew on the Sunday afternoon and stayed over at a Premier Inn so they would be fresh the next day for a busy one.
We visited Kew gardens on the Sunday evening and then we to the Natural History Museum on the Monday as well as going to the Tower of London and showing the boys some sights.
We didn't take a pushchair this time as the thought of dragging a double buggy up and down the stairs to the tube was frightening. So we used buses, taxis and the tube as much as we could. The boys did really well with their walking and hardly ever got grumpy. Yes we had to carry them a bit but all in all, it was a great little trip. So here we go - our trip to London!
Sammy checking out the breakfast menu!
Looking for 'ladles' (labels) of all the tree names.
Canopy walk.
Little Sammy and big trees.
Pretending to be squirrels.
We spent about and hour and a half at Kew Gardens. It was getting late we were all hungry so we went our for dinner then got a taxi back to the hotel.
We
stayed in a Premier Inn family room. This had a double bed and two
singles. This was the first time the boys have stayed in an actual bed
by the way. They took AGES to get to sleep but once they did that was it
till the next morning. I couldn't really blame them though. It must
have been exciting having your best buddy next to you to play with and
drive trucks over and wrestle with! We did have one little accident
when Fin fell off our bed and bit through his lip (this child and lip injuries!) but a McDonalds milkshake sorted that!
We had a very hot and humid night in our hotel room and didn't get to
sleep till gone 11 (yeah that was all of us!). We mentioned the heat to teh guy on reception and he gave us a full refund straight back! Amazing! The breakfast was great and just what we needed. Yes I did steal some muffins and put them in my bag for later too! We headed out an got a taxi to the tube
station to save little legs getting tired and waited for the tube!
First London taxi!
The boys were so excited about going on a big train. I don't know why but they call it a 'Percy Train' although it wasn't green. Luckily we only had to do one change to get to the museum. It was so hot that day too that we didn't want to spend too much time under ground.
Tube-tastic!
On the way to London, every time we mentioned the dinosaurs, the boys would ask if Andy was going to be there - for those know know Cbeebies, that's from 'Andy's Dinosaur Adventures'. I did have to tell them that he might be. There were a little disappointed when he wasn't - but I did my best to direct them into forgetting.
I was a little excited about seeing the dinosaurs too.
I bought the boys some dinosaur t shirts to wear to the museum as well as their dinosaur backpacks! yeah I'm sad I know but it didn't go unnoticed when a tourist at the museum was like 'oh my god they're wearing dinosaur t shirts at the dinosaur museum!'.
A bit dark but it was in that room. So dark and crowded and too hot.
Fins face!!! 'So you're telling me these things were actually real??'
'Roar'
'Big bear'
Not too happy about the hippo!
As the museum was so hot we decided only to spend a maximum of about an hour there. We just did the dinosaur room and the mammals. We can do the rest when they are a little older. We left there about lunch time had a picnic on the grass outside.Sam and Fin have a new love for chasing pigeons!
Fin obviously eating ice cream! Thanks Papa for the ice cream money!!
Sammy didnt want a cone.
Posing by the Tower of London.
London bus.
By the end of the ay both boys were hot and tired. We did fit a lot into our short weekend so you cant blame them when they walked so far and saw so much without having much sleep. We had to get the tube back to our hotel where the car was parked the boys fell straight asleep on the train. There were some very nice people that gave up their seats for us. I think they could tell that we needed them with two sleepy boys literally sticking to us on the heat! But we all really loved it. Not as hard with two toddlers as we thought. I cant wait until we go again!
