We were nearing the end of our year membership to Leed's Castle so we decided to spend the kids school break visiting it and other nearby sights again, so we could experience them with warmer weather conditions than our first visits.
Leed's Castle
We hadn't thought about Halloween festivities going on during break, but it was fun to have them. I sort of wish I had thought about it sooner though, as the kids would have loved dressing up in their costumes.
There were actors dressed up, giving clues to a Halloween scavenger hunt the kids were doing. They also had a party for kids with fun games.
'S' is for spooky faces.
Black swans are a symbol of Leed's Castle.
Photo op with a peacock.
It was a little nerve-wracking once it moved though:
I think Koen had a tad harder time keeping a serious face.
Koen was the only one of our kids brave enough to participate in the Halloween party games. He was nervous to go on his own, but went for it and had a good time too.
The playground was closed the first time we visited Leeds due to it being cold and icy. So we made sure to spend a good while playing there this time around.
We happened to pack this shirt for Macie, which was passed to us by friends, and I noticed, it fits her at the perfect time.
Dover Castle
We were in Dover at the end of 2016 with the intention of touring the castle, but ran out of time after our hike at the cliffs went much longer than expected.
This time, we made the castle the priority with plans to visit the cliffs the next day.
It was neat that the children were able to sit on the throne... though I thought the thrones were quite different than I would have expected.
It was fun to go to the rooftop. As you can see, it was quite windy at the top.
The view of Dover from the top of the castle.
The kids ran around doing some sort of personal racing and cheering each other on.
Dover Castle has underground tunnels that can be toured. They were used during World War 2.
Koen thought this wall looked just like the entrance to Harry Potter's Diagon Alley.
A short Tunnel of Terror was available to walk through. I'd say it had a good balance of spookiness without being too much for little ones to walk through.
Inside a small museum at the end of our wartime tunnel tour.
We were slightly spooked to find a mannequin hiding in a hole of one of the castle floors.
We ate dinner at the restaurant next door to our hotel and I was looking forward to a hamburger. But believe it or not, a place called Beefeater with a cow logo were completely out of burgers.
White Cliffs of Dover
We came prepared with our wellies in case of muddy paths, such as what we experienced the year before. We intended to walk to the bottom of the cliffs to the shore this time as well.
Looking at a large snail we found.
Dover Castle from the cliffs.
They found a worm.
It was neat spotting a ship wreckage down below and thought it would be exciting to explore.
Unfortunately, this is as far as we could make it. The trail had been knocked away and destroyed, and we couldn't safely make it any further. I felt pretty bad for the kids though. They (and myself) were so greatly looking forward to being on the shore.
It's true... we passed the "closed" sign to see how close we could get.
The disappearing path.
You can't really get a sense of these boulders size in this photo, but we assume they're the cause of the broken path.
Hadley was happily moving along ahead of us... until she saw this pony coming her away.
How neat it was to see an opening in the sky, showing the top of the lower layer of clouds.
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