Planes, trains and double-decker buses

For spring break, we headed off to London to meet up with Pete's parents and 2 of his sisters and their families. We had been looking forward to this trip for months and its hard to believe it has already come and gone. As always, I'll be separating it into various posts so as not to overwhelm you. A big thanks to my s-i-l Heather who planned the whole thing and let us crash her party. I also need to give a shout out to my adopted sis-in-law Alyssa who gave us a great play-by-play of the city and so many helpful hints for the kids. Last but not least, thanks to my s-i-l Julie and my m-i-l Marge for sharing pictures with me.

Here we are at the beginning of our journey. We packed a little bit heavier this time to make room for our rain gear and church clothes and to save space for some goodies to bring home.

We flew into London City airport which is about a million times better than Heathrow. From there we had to take the train (DLR), followed by the tube to get to our hotel. It was a little bit tricky with our bags, a stroller and 3 kids, but we made it in one piece. Alex and Ruby were big helpers and each pulled a bag.

My s-i-l Heather found a great hotel that we all stayed at (minus Pete's parents). It is called the Arran House and it is located on...

...beautiful Gower Street which is about a 10 minute walk to the British Museum and less than a 5 minute walk to Tottenham Court Road.

We had a lovely room which all 5 of us stayed in. Instead of 2 beds pushed together to make one bed (very common in Europe) Pete and I actually had ONE queen sized bed.

The only downside to our room was the bathroom. The small size wasn't the problem, it was the shower. It was very interesting to give the kids showers every day without flooding the entire bathroom. To make it more fun, the water temperature was continually changing from freezing cold to scalding hot. Every night the kids would moan, "I don't want to take a shower!" I couldn't blame them. It wasn't really my cup of tea either.

Notice how there is no real separation between the shower and bathroom floors.

London is one hour behind Switzerland time wise. Therefore, every morning Henry would wake up bright and early (5:30 am) and Pete would hang out with him in the hotel "family room" until the rest of the kids woke up around 6:30am. The hotel breakfast was really yummy but wasn't served until 8 am. So every morning we fed the kids packets of instant oatmeal in our room.


All in all, London was amazing. It is definitely a city I would love to revisit. The people were extremely friendly, the food was great and there were so many things to see and do. Of course we did all the typical things like:

testing out the red phone booths,
(Alex and Ruby said they smelled bad)

riding the public transportation,

which included the red double-decker buses.

We got lost a couple of times.

But it was wonderful to be with family and to finally meet...

...COUSIN HANNAH!
Ruby adored her (as you can imagine) and both she and Alex would fight over who got to push her stroller.

Although Alex moaned the first day about all the walking we did, after a stern lecture from yours truly, he toughened up and enjoyed every little part of the city we visited.

Ruby was at her best when she was being carried (by nice Uncle Parry in this picture) or getting a free ride in the stroller.

Henry, the child I wish would have stayed in the stroller, was only happy if he was free and independent. His favorite part of London was walking up and down each and every step he saw (fyi there are a million steps in London). Oh well.