Iron Bridge

This past Saturday we took a day trip to Iron Bridge Gorge.  The bridge here in Coalbrookdale over the River Severn is the World's first iron bridge and the area is considered to be "the birthplace of industry."  The surrounding area has 10 museums to see, we really only made it to 2, so we will have to return to see the rest.  We spent most of our time at a childrens science museum called "Enginuity," where the kids learned a lot about building, engineering, pulleys, energy etc. 

The kids could have spent all day playing with this huge hydro power demonstration table, opening and closing valves, playing with the boats.  We had to tear them away to see the rest of the museum.

Building an arch bridge was challenging but fun!

Avery moved a train engine with the help of a series of pulleys.

After Enginuity we found some authentic fish and chips, served in a paper cone and then found our way to the China Museum.   The kids got to explore some old china and also paint their own china roses.

We'll definitely have to return to Iron Bridge to explore some more.  They say you can see all the museums in a day, but that doesn't seem possibe if you want to really enjoy each museum. 

Though site-seeing is fun, we are discovering that the kids really do appreciate their days at home just relaxing.  We have to be careful to not do too many day trips.  They work so hard all week and Avery even has lots of homework on weekends, so we're finding that there really aren't many large chunks of free time for the kids to just relax and play at home.  We also need to remember that the long school days are very exhausting for them, especially since it takes extra brain power when people talk differently than you do.  I'm also missing the occasional days off...Martin Luther King Day, half days, snow days that we have in the States.  Yes, we have more breaks here, but once the term begins, there really aren't any extra days off until the half term break. Sometimes even just a slight break in the routine can be really beneficial.  It's an intense 6 weeks....4 weeks to go by the way...I'm definitely counting.