Oh the Places You'll Go

Remember last Friday's post that Mr E and I were taking our restless, little natives away for the weekend? Well here are some photos of our visit to a 'real' castle! (A tourist attraction but as far as Kookaburra and Kangaroo were concerned it was pretty darn real :D

Kangaroo was bouncing off the walls excited to go and everyone we met oohed and ahhed over his little costume. Which of course made him chattier then ever! We even had other tourists encouraging their children to pose for photo's with Kangaroo like he was a part of the attraction :D

Entrance to the castle held a humorous, little warning :)

Kookaburra and Kangaroo pointed and chatted their hearts out. I'm a wee bit guilty of being glad to leave in the end :P - I was thoroughly exhausted from all the questions!!!

Real Knights Armour and of course Kangaroo was fascinated and wanted to know all about their weaponry. How on earth do I shift his focus from weapons?! His play continuously involves weapons of some description - guns, knives, swords, bombs etc, etc. Even though I try to distract him and if I think hard enough I know the theme is not constant and rarely malicious or directed at other children, I feel mostly that my efforts to discourage such play is in fact futile. We read so much history and inadvertently we are reading tales of battles, armies conquering, stories of survival - we love our hero tales - that for better or worse Kangaroo is playing out what his mind is being fed. So to balance this theme out I try to consciously include character type books so as to feed his mind with another type of food.

Remember the television show 'Xena: Warrior Princess'? Well this is the real throne from the set! Pretty cool for me as I watched the show during my twenties (I think) but I was the only one really excited to see it.

I want one of these!!!!
Somewhere I can hide out :D

So, so many steps.
Up and down and around and around.

Play acting in the Dungeon!

What a view.

Our ever cautious Kookaburra struggled to ascend the last remaining few staircases, whilst Kangaroo was hurrying on ahead out of sight.

Like chalk and cheese our boys.

I'm pretty darn proud of my Kookaburra for getting as far up as he did. Kookaburra has a very healthy fear of heights which frustrated him nearly to tears during this excursion. He battled indecisively to go as far as he did and he was so disappointed when he found he couldn't make it to the very top of the final turret.

Exploring.

The castle housed an enormous doll collection which we could have hung out in for hours reading everything and admiring it all. The doll that left the biggest impression was one made entirely from sugar and stood about a hand high. Fascinated by the concept, Kangaroo and Kookaburra were still talking about it a few days later.

When it was time to go, I was glad to see I wasn't the only one absolutely exhausted. Our poor little showman needed his beauty sleep :) because there is always a new audience waiting unawares at wherever our next stop may be!