Cainan's Birthday trip to Denmark. Day One: Legoland

Last night, Mat and Cainan flew to Billund, Denmark for a birthday trip for Cainan.  His birthday isn't until June 2nd, but this was a good weekend for them to take this adventure.  The girls were not interested in Legoland, so Cainan got his dad all to himself for a few days.

Today they went to Legoland in Billund.  For those who don't know - Billund, Denmark is the birthplace of Legos.  Where the magic all began.  Cainan was so excited because Legos are his favorite thing.  Well...that and french fries.

They had a great day today - rode rides, checked out large lego statues, ate on a lego shaped tray for lunch.  And he didn't have his sisters whining in his ear, or making any of the decisions - it was all up to him.

Last day in Scotland

Today was our last day in Scotland. We had a little time before our plane left, so we made two stops. The first was the Midhope Castle. It is a main filming site for Outlander. (Lallybroch in the show). Sidebar: it isn’t me who is an Outlander fan. 🤪. Our last stop was the Vet school campus for Edinburgh University. Arlington wants to go to vet school but that campus was not in the city when we toured the main school the other day. We are now at the airport. We had a great trip! The kids are still off from school this whole week, so at least we have rest still ahead.

Midhope Castle.  There is an entrance fee to visit this place (and they only take cash) and I need to tell you it isn't worth it.  Unless you are a hard core fan of the show, you cannot go into the castle - you can only walk around the outside and it cose 3.50 pounds a person.  I would say skip it.

 The three bridges

 The vet campus. This is the Roslin Institute and where Dolly the sheep was made

 We don't collect many souveniers on our trips, but we always bring back a few magnets.  Here is our current FULL collections from all of our trips since 2001.  We love looking at them and reliving the memories.

Harry Potter Train ride through the Scottish Highlands

Happy Easter! Today we took our long anticipated train ride through the Scottish Highlands. We booked these tickets last November so that we could sit in the Harry Potter themed coach. Cainan was so excited. The train ride was beautiful. Pictures do not do the Highlands justice. This is the train they use in the Harry Potter movies when the kids travel to Hogwarts. We went over the famous viaduct you see in the films. We stopped at two small towns on the round trip ride. It was a 6 hour trip and so much fun. We then drove back to Glasgow this evening. We drove back through the Highlands- big mountains, large lakes and deep valleys. Incredible. Great day.

The train.  It is called The Jacobite and it takes this route during Easter weekend and then all summer.  The engine was really cool

 Finley wore her Ravenclaw sweatshirt for the occasion

 Sitting in our coach. They used to be the benches like in the films but I guess people complained they were uncomfortable so they replaced them with fancy seats

 Arlington pretending that she is Hermonie 

Views from the train

 There it is! That is what you see in the films. It was fun to cross. And the people that were waiting below it to take the train picture was incredible

 I did open the small window and take a picture of the train traveling along

 Finley pretending to be Luna Lovegood and reading the menu upside down

 Our train treats

 We had a solid 2 hour trip back and so we played the Lake Norman card game (family game)