Saturday 8th October 2016
Our weekend started a little earlier than planned when I received a phone call on Friday afternoon to collect my poorly baba from nursery, so Saturday was spent chilling at home including snuggling up on the sofa and watching a film.
Sunday 9th October 2016
On Sunday morning we headed to Edinburgh to visit the zoo for the first part of S’ birthday trip away.
S was fascinated with the penguins swimming up to the viewing glass but unfortunately only one penguin decided to take part in the penguin parade.
After spending the afternoon exploring the zoo we headed to our hotel to check into our room for the night. We had booked into the Holiday Inn Express Edinburgh – Waterfront in the Leith area of the city. With free parking, breakfast included and, perhaps most importantly, an in-budget price it was the perfect place for our family getaway! (Plus USB and plug sockets at each side of the bed!)
After sorting everything out in our room we headed across the road to Pizza Express in the Ocean Terminal Shopping Centre for dinner.
S was still feeling full of the cold so didn’t eat much of his pizza, but our starters and pizzas were yummy!
Monday 10th October 2016
After filling up on breakfast at the hotel we headed to Dynamic Earth. We had visited at the end of October last year when they had a deal on where you could get a year pass for the same price as a day pass so we thought we would make use of it and visit again whilst we were in the capital.
Unfortunately we couldn’t take part in the 3D flight simulator section as S had decided he didn’t want to sit still and wanted to leave.
One of the lovely members of staff then told us about the soft play area located within the gift shop so we headed through there to let him run around for a while. He had fun playing in the ball pool and exploring the area which was designed to simulate an underwater environment including a submarine to explore.
We then had a look in the gift shop. We have discovered S is a bit scared of dinosaurs so wasn’t interested in those books but took a liking to the ones about space. However the ones they had were generally aimed at older children, so we will have to have a look out for some space themed books for his age group.
After a look around the gift shop it was time for our showing in the show dome which was screening ‘We are Astronomers’. Thankfully S managed to sit through all of this documentary (mainly thanks to some rice cakes!) that both A and myself found really interesting!
We then headed for a walk up the Royal Mile, clearly Dynamic Earth had tired S out as it wasn’t too long before he was sound asleep in his buggy.
In search of lunch we came across Deacons House Cafe where we sat outside in the close and had a lovely warming bowl of soup with sandwiches and salad.
S soon woke up and wasn’t in a particularly good mood, suffering from lack of sleep and being full of the cold so we decided it was time to head back to the car and head home. Of course this meant passing Mimi’s Little Bakehouse on the Royal Mile so we popped in past, picked up a couple of cakes and I got a salted caramel mocha – which tasted amazing! A visit to Edinburgh really isn’t complete without a visit to Mimi’s!
Bounty Brownie for Mummy & Raspberry Nutella for Daddy
So that was our weekend away in Edinburgh for S’ birthday treat, despite him not feeling 100% we had a good time and it was nice to spend some quality time together as a family of three – something we don’t get to do often in between our work schedules.
Edinburgh is one of our favourite cities to visit so I’m sure it won’t be long before we visit again. Do you have any recommendations of places to visit in Edinburgh, let us know in the comments below or over on our Facebook page?