The alarm went off oh so early! 3:45am and we were up and at ’em. Thanks to the incredible generosity of our friend Steph we made it to the airport before the sun came up! We checked our 1 bag and made it to the plane. A relatively quick plane ride to NYC then a small hop to Boston. The children stayed glued to their devices and of course enjoyed the drinks – enjoy the drinks now kids there won’t be any on the next plane (more on that later)! We made it into Boston where we had an 8 hour layover.

What to do on an 8 hour layover? Head into the city of course. The first issue to solve was what to do with the luggage as there are no lockers at the airport! Erik had a brilliant idea and called the Hilton Hotel and they offered to hold the luggage – perfect! We called our Uber and headed downtown. We dropped off the luggage – easy peasy and walked a few blocks to Quincy Market. The kids loved the idea of a food court and picking their own lunch. Thank goodness Qunicy Market has as much variety as my children’s tastes! Quesadilla, Japanese teriyaki chicken, chicken strips, and lobster pie for the win! With full tummies we headed over Faneuil Hall for a history lesson. We figured it was important to learn both sides of American History so we filled their heads with important facts of the revolution. There’s always 2 sides to a story so we’ll learn the British side later 🙂 Samantha particularly loved learning about the printing press. Then we walked the area to find Paul Revere’s House. We learned a bit about Paul and his famous ride. The extremely tired children decided Paul wasn’t quite interesting enough and were soon ready to move on. Luckily around the corner we found delicious gelato (thank goodness there’s a strong Italian representation in Boston!). The children were revived with gelato and wanted to play at the park. So we walked a ways and found the Frog park in the center of Boston. As the children played (and Katie chased some squirrels) we strategized our dinner plan. Pizza is always a favorite so we found a pizza place and each ordered a slice – or so we thought! Evidently at this place every slice is a quarter of a pizza (I thought he said “three and a quarter for the slice”). Ooops – too much food so we shared with the homeless man outside the shop (for real!). We had full bellies and tired feet so it was time to head back to the airport. After a quick walk back to Hilton to grab our bags (thanks Hilton!) we caught an Uber back to the airport.

We flew Norwegian Airlines and check in was relatively painless although they are extremely particular about the weight and size of the bags! We made our way to the gate and waited for the boarding. Norwegian is a “budget” airline and does not provide food, drinks, wifi, or a place for the your legs (ok I made up that last part but it was extremely tight)! We bought some waters and snacks quickly and then loaded the plane. Despite it being a budget airline there are screens at each seat with movies (phew! thank goodness!). Everyone settled into their seats for the 6 hour ride and away we went! Thankfully the children settled down quickly and mostly went to sleep (must be nice to be tiny and be able to lay on someone’s lap to sleep). After a few hours of restless sleep I gave in and watched movies for the rest of the flight!

9:00am and we have arrived in London! Despite our lack of sleep we had things to accomplish. First assignment – find our bags and figure out the transportation. Erik had done some research online and discovered we could use Apple pay and contactless credit cards for the trains. So we quickly mapped out our route to the Airbnb and off we went! London can be quite expensive, especially when finding housing for 6. So we found an Airbnb a little ways along the train – about 35 minutes from the center of London. The house has a bed for everyone (remember no sofa beds!) and plenty of space for our “home away from home.” We easily made our way to the house and dropped off our bags. Of course it was time to eat again (sometimes I think that is all we do!) so we went searching for sustenance. Despite the protests of the children we decided to eat at Liqui Liqui, a Venezuelan cafe (because we should eat traditional British food right?). It was quite good and I discovered I really enjoy cachapas! A few of us filled up easily while others whined until I promised they could pick out food at Aldi. We have learned you have to give and take on these trips!

A quick stop at Aldi to pick up some provisions and then back to the house to drop them off. Now at this point in our day we had been traveling for many many hours with very few of those hours dedicated to sleeping. You may remember from our previous trip to Germany that we are on 2 teams – see post “Naps are for Babies” and I have to admit the “Babies” team won this time. After a quick catnap for a few team members we were rejuvenated and ready to head into the city.

London Eye – At the top of everyone’s list was a trip on the London Eye. Erik bought us some tickets (including a hop on/hop off bus tour) and off we set for the city. We walked quickly to the Colliers Wood train station and set off into the beautiful city of London. We easily found the London Eye (really you can’t miss a gigantic ferris wheel!) and found the line to be quite long. So we headed into the 4-d theater which proved to be disappointing. But no worries we had a cool ride ahead! When we came out from the theater the line was about half so we happily got in the queue! Soon we were boarding our pod as the wheel slowly turned. About 2/3 of the family thoroughly enjoyed the ride while 1/3 tolerated the heights to enjoy the view. I’ll let you decide who was who 🙂

Following the ride the children found an awesome adventure park just across from the Eye. Although they were hungry (who is surprised?) we decided to play for a while! Eventually we forced them to leave as we knew there would be a mutiny without food. We walked along the Thames river and found a cute restaurant named “Giraffe” which everyone decided looked good! The food was good and the kids drinks came with little giraffes which we thought were so cute until we discovered they cost more than the adult drinks! It was a bit of a surprise at the end of the meal to spend 15 pounds on kid drinks! After a quick talk with the waiter he removed the costs and we thought the giraffes were cute again!

By this time a few of us were sleeping standing up so we needed to head “home.” We also had tickets for Harry Potter Studio Tour the next morning so we needed to get some rest! A train ride “home” and we all quickly went to sleep!