And just like that half term is over and we’ve been back at school for three days already! We did spend a great (if very wet) four days in Edinburgh last week, although it already feels like it was ages ago! Unfortunately spending most of last week away didn’t do anything to help anyone’s tiredness levels… I think it’s going to be quite a long slog until Christmas now!

As I mentioned, our stay in Edinburgh was very wet. In fact I think it rained for pretty much all of every day we were there. Fortunately though there is loads to do in Edinburgh in the rain and we still managed to have a really good time.

On our first full day, after arriving by train on Monday afternoon, we spent the day at the National Museum of Scotland. We’ve been there a few times before – we even took the boys once when they were very little – but there is so much to see that you could spend days there and still not see everything!

The boys loved it, although it was a shame that a lot of the interactive screens on the exhibits were turned off due to Covid. They were both especially taken with this plasma ball though, which luckily was still working.

If you’re ever in Edinburgh I would definitely recommend a visit to the National Museum – there’s loads to see and do, it’s got two cafes (and a space to eat your own packed lunches which was fab), and best of all it’s free!

On our second day we got the train over the Forth Rail Bridge to Dunfermline where we used to live, and where both the boys were born. Even though it’s 5 years since we moved it almost felt like we’d never been away. I don’t think Toby and Gabe were that in impressed but it was nice to have a wander in some old haunts, and have lunch in a new diner-type place that wasn’t open when we lived there. We had a look round the new museum too, it’s only small but worth a visit if you ever happen to find yourself in Dunfermline.

Thursday was our last full day in Edinburgh but both the boys were exhausted by this point so we had a quiet morning in our Air BnB, then spent the afternoon exploring Dynamic Earth. As you might expect it is an interactive museum all about planet earth. You start by going in the Deep Time Machine and travelling back 13.8 million years to witness the Big Bang and the creation of the universe!

It’s really good fun and the boys both loved it. Again, there’s so much to see and do, including a 4D film adventure, and a half hour planetarium show at the end. And Toby put his acting skills to use for this picture of him being chased by a sabre-toothed cat!

I met up with an old friend on Thursday night – we met when were both about to go and work in France 23 years ago, and then worked together in various places for another 6 years after that. We’d not seen each other since we moved back to England 5 years ago though so it was lovely to have a good catch up.

On Friday we weren’t due to leave until 3 pm but the weather was the worst it had been all week, so we spent an hour or so on a city tour bus, had a quick and soggy look at Edinburgh Castle and then killed nearly two hours having lunch in Pizza Express!

It was a bit hard to enjoy our last day to be honest because not only was it chucking it down, but all the trains from Edinburgh to Preston in the previous two days had been cancelled due to the rain, and even the other trains before ours on the Friday had been cancelled too. We were so worried that we wouldn’t be able to get home… but by some miracle our train actually ran! Not only that but it was on time, and it wasn’t even that busy and we managed to get our seats!

All in all we had a fab time, but it was definitely one of those holidays where you need another week off to recover! I hope you had a lovely half term whatever you got up to – and hopefully it was a bit drier than ours!

This is my ninth year taking part in this linky celebrating childhood, based on a poem by Kahlil Gibran, “You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth” .

If you’d like to see the rest of my Living Arrows posts you can find them all here.