We had to wait until our Whit Holiday to spend time together as a family of 6 this year as for some reason the local education authorities decided it would be good to mess around with holiday dates which sadly resulted in Dan & Em being off on school holiday at a different time to Josh.
To make up for the lack of holiday time together Mum & Dad decided that we would have an action packed few days.
On Monday Mum, Dan, Em & Harry went to the Cheshire Ice Cream Farm where surprisingly they saw some cows and ate ice creams. The ice creams were delicious, so tasty in fact that a huge tub of triple chocolate ice cream made it into our freezer at home.
Dad made the trip to Wales on Wednesday evening after work to collect Josh so that our fun filled holiday days could begin bright & breezy on Thursday morning.
Thursday – Chester Zoo
Thursday morning dawned bright & early, a good few hours before we got out of bed. Mum had been up early for her morning walk and by the time she got home Emilie, Josh & Harry were awake.
After we had eaten our breakfast, got dressed & tidied our bedrooms we bundled into the Fun Bus and headed off to Chester Zoo. We were excited about going to the zoo as we hadn’t been for a while & it was also Harry’s first time and we were going to be able to show him lots of different animals.
We arrived at the zoo and made our way to the entrance, after queueing for what seemed like forever we made it through the gates and made our way across to the elephants – Harry’s first encounter with zoo animals was with the elephants which is quite apt given that he is comparable in size to a baby elephant. Harry looked bewildered when he saw the elephants but eventually his face broke into it’s trademark smile and he started to laugh.
We spent hours walking around the zoo, stopping at regular intervals for refreshments including lunch, ice cream, drink breaks, hot donuts etc. etc.
We saw loads of animals, as you would expect in a zoo, we all loved seeing the monkeys and we were very excited when we finally saw a Jaguar in the Jaguar house, when we have been before the Jaguar has been somewhat elusive so much so that we actually wondered if there really were any Jaguars at all.
Josh was determined to prove to us all that he was no longer afraid of going in to the Bat Cave to “see” the bats so our zoo visit included a trip into the bat cave. Unsurprisingly one of the boys didn’t make it through the cave but in a strange twist it was actually Dan who refused to go in this time.
We introduced Harry to lots of animals and he really seemed to enjoy himself. He wasn’t at all bothered in the bat cave or the butterfly house where creatures were flying all around him. Mum worried that he might try & grab a butterfly & eat it as he is quite partial to a bit of food.
Our trip to the zoo ended with a tour around the gift shop where we were all allowed to chose a memento from the day. Harry got a cuddly elephant as a reminder that this was the 1st animal he ever saw at a zoo.
It was a great day & we were all exhausted, in fact we all, apart from Dad, fell asleep on the way home.
Friday – Legoland Discovery Centre
We spent Friday morning playing on the trampoline and riding our bikes and repeatedly asking “what time are we leaving for today’s surprise?” Eventually Mum & Dad said we would be going after lunch – which was met with the response “what time are we having lunch?”
Lunch time EVENTUALLY arrived and we ate our lunches in record time, once we were finished we made our way to the Fun Bus ready for our afternoon excursion. Dad was driving & he wouldn’t tell us where we were going to so we had to guess as we were driving along.
We eventually turned off the motorway at the exit for the Trafford Centre & Dad told us that our treat for the afternoon was to go and do some shopping in the Trafford Centre – we were not at all amused as non of us like shopping! As we walked sullenly across the car park and into the Trafford Centre Josh suddenly noticed there was a poster for the Lego Discovery Centre. Josh pointed out the poster & asked if we were going there but Mum & Dad said we weren’t as they didn’t even realise that it was there. It turns out that they were actually joking & that our surprise was an afternoon at the Discovery Centre.
The first thing we did when we got in was have a family photo with a lego model of Buzz Lightyear, he was nearly as tall as Mum. We then spent a couple of hours riding on rides, watching a 3d lego film, looking at lego models of buildings in and around the North-West and building lego cars to race. Dad built a car for Harry which actually means he couldn’t resist the pull of the lego and needed to build lego!
Once we had looked at all the Discovery Centre had to offer we made our way to the gift shop
After choosing our memento from the gift shop we made our way back to the car & Mum suggested that we could go for a treat to the Krispy Kreme shop – we love these donuts so of course we shouted “yes!” We all enjoyed a Krispy Kreme donut & we took a box of 12 home with us too – yummy yummy!
Saturday – Cadbury World
We were very excited about going to Cadbury World, as we love chocolate!
When we arrived we had to quickly make our way to the reception area as we were booked on a tour of the factory, we liked the tour before it started as we were presented with a bar of chocolate immediately upon arrival.
The tour showed how chocolate had been brought to our country & then we went through to the factory where we received more bars of chocolate & saw the packaging machines. All 6 of us had our photo taken in the Cadbury Flake bath, then went on a little ride with the coco beans & then we wrote our names in molten chocolate. We were also given a little pot of molten chocolate to eat/drink as well, it was delicious!
When the tour was finished we once again ended up in the gift shop, can you see a theme developing? The haul from the gift shop was amazing – not least becasue Dad bought a box of 60 curly-wurly bars and a box of 60 chomp bars. Emilie chose some chocolate letters & a fridge magnet coco bean, Harry decided he’d like some cadbury animal biscuits to munch on & Dan & Josh decided that they would share a 1.5kg life size chocolate football!
When the chocolate trolley dash was complete we made our way back to the car and set off for home.
And that was the end of our holiday days outs – as usual we had loads of fun and we can’t wait until our next holiday not least because we are off together for 2 weeks and we are going on holiday to London and Centre Parcs!!!