And just like that half term is over and Toby and Gabe are back to school this morning. We’ve actually had a really good week off – the weather has been pretty horrible but we managed a good mix of going out and staying in, and hopefully the boys are feeling rested and ready for another six weeks of school before the next holiday!

We didn’t start the week with many plans but we actually ended up fitting quite a lot in. We started with a couple of days at home then on Tuesday we went to see my mum and dad in the morning and the boys got to play with my dad’s mini-drone at his Scout hut.

In the afternoon we went to soft play with a couple of Toby’s friends from school, one of whom has a brother in Gabe’s class too. The kids all enjoyed running around playing for an hour or so and I enjoyed having some grown ups to talk to as well!

On Thursday we decided to have an bit of an impromptu visit to Sea Life Blackpool. We’ve been once before but it was a few years ago now so I was happy to take the boys again. It’s pretty expensive – it would have been £37 even just for three of us. But we’ve got quite a lot of Tesco Clubcard vouchers at the moment, and it only took £12 of vouchers which was a lot more reasonable.

The boys really enjoyed it, although I think if you asked them they would have been just as excited about the McDonalds we had for lunch afterwards! We don’t go to McDonalds very often but it does seem to be turning into a bit of a school holiday tradition.

Saturday was probably our most exciting day out. Barry was working all week so Saturday was the only time we were able to do something all together. We got the train to Manchester and spent the morning at The Art of the Brick – a Lego art exhibition.

There were loads of Lego sculptures, both original pieces and replicas of famous art works, all made by one man, an American called Nathan Sawaya. We all enjoyed looking at the Lego sculptures, and the boys had fun playing in the big Lego pits at the end of the exhibition.

There was an offer on over half term for a free child entry with an adult ticket, but it still cost us £29 which I thought was quite a lot considering we were only there for about an hour. We did enjoy it though and it was a great half term treat.

We spent the afternoon at The Museum of Science and Industry. Toby and Gabe absolutely loved all the interactive exhibits, and the Science Showdown show before we got the train back home.

All in all we’ve had a really good week. I often feel guilty in the school holidays that we aren’t doing enough but I think we definitely packed in plenty of activities over the last week. I have a feeling the boys aren’t going to be happy about going back to school this morning though!

I hope you all had a lovely half term whatever you got up to.

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.