London

Since we found out that we would be moving to England, Koen wanted to celebrate his birthday visiting Tower Bridge in London. We spent the Saturday after his birthday in London, seeing as much as we could... which pretty much totaled up to a whopping three things. Ha!

We took a train into London. This was an exciting new way of traveling for us. Macie was scared as we stepped onto the train but she quickly calmed down after we got going. The ride lasted somewhere around an hour. The kids were growing impatient by the end but they did a pretty good job. We enjoyed seeing the scenery outside. The sun shone, which was really nice.

Tower Bridge was our priority stop. There's a lot of construction happening on the bridge so cars can't drive on it and pedestrians were limited to one side. It was quite busy.

 The view of the River Thames from one side of the upper walkway of Tower Bridge.

See-through floors are always a little nerve-racking.

They clearly became more comfortable with the walking/crawling over the glass before we left.

We got to see the boiler/engine room for the bridge. (Tower Bridge splits open to allow large ships to pass through.) This contraption demonstrated how something works for the bridge, but clearly I can't remember what or how. But as the kids rotated a lever, a chair would rise and lower.

 We were all hungry by the time we finished our bridge tour and got a bite to eat at a burger restaurant.

 If one of my children volunteers to have their picture taken, I try to take advantage! This is Hadley standing in front of the Tower of London right after lunch. We didn't take a tour this time.

We took a train ride and this was our view as soon as we stepped out of the station.

Big Ben was probably the highlight of our day. The lighting of the setting sun was spectacular and made the building shine. It was very crowded around Big Ben.

Really, you can see these red telephone booths all around England. There's even one on the air force base. But the booths near Big Ben are far more populated with tourists. And if Big Ben is in the background of a booth, then there were lines of people waiting to take a picture with it. We opted to skip the lines.

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I like how Hadley seems to look like she's having quite a funny conversation

This is the front of Buckingham Palace. The was actually a disappointment stop for me. I had a much less "wow" impression when we came to it. I was hoping to see guards with fuzzy hats but none were present. By the time we got here, Koen was complaining of his stomach aching a lot, Hadley's legs were quite tired and we knew it was time we ended our visit. So we didn't stay long and my pictures were few. I'd like to go again when the weather is warmer and try to get better pictures... hopefully with some neat guards around too.  It was also crowded around here.

I'm not sure what this gate is about... I THINK people could easily walk around to the other side... maybe I'm wrong. It looked like it went into a public park. But it was an elaborate and neat looking gate.

I wish I had looked closer to see what this memorial was about and represented, but it is located in front of the palace and provided a good place for tourists to gather and sit.

Koen was lying on the steps just below the above sculpture not feeling too great and looking sort of homely.

I did make us take a family selfie. Koen certainly wasn't feeling into it... until Hadley made a silly face, which made him laugh. But then he was trying to fight the happiness and hide his smile.

Koen felt much better once we got on the tube to start our trip back home.

It was a pretty good trip and though it was cold, I was grateful for the beautiful day we got with the sun shining. We'll certainly need to make several trips back to see so much that we missed, but for a first time, I think it was great.