Day Out with Thomas

Today we couldn't decide what to do - I think we are all fairly exhausted but it was going to be hot again and staying in the apartment all day is usually more work than going out. So, we decided to take transit to the Rail Museum in Ipswich. http://www.theworkshops.qm.qld.gov.au/

They keep advertising it on TV and other people have recommended it, so we thought it would be good. I think the people that have recommended it have boys that are train obsessed. Ellis is not (contrary to what Cyp thinks). Part of the deal was that transit is included in price of entry. So we hiked to the central train station and caught the train (or I should say waited as it only comes every 3o minutes on a Saturday - skytrain it is not). Then we rode on the train for what seemed like an hour (dumb us forgot the Leapster) only to get off in Ipswich to discover the bus to the museum only seemed to go once per hour (with 45 minutes to go). Another bus came along and I asked the driver if he went anywhere near the museum. Thankfully he did. That is one thing I've noticed about the buses here - there usually seems to be about 3 that drive the same route. Apparently people cannot walk a couple of blocks. Lucky for us.

The museum was fine - saw some trains. Day out with Thomas turned out to be the addition of faces to the front of trains that were already on display. Yup. Oh - and spot Thomas on the model railway display. Yup - some toy Thomases got added to the model railway! That was about it. I did see a guy dressed up as Sir Topam Hat and I think he may have read a Thomas story to the kids at one point but that was it. I asked Ellis if he liked the museum.

"nope - I like Science World" was the reply.

We made the looooong journey home - amazingly Ellis managed to entertain himself on the hour long train ride (which Cyp and I found to be the most interesting part of the day). Basically, he played with the map of the museum the entire way home. He read it, tried folding it back up and then juggled with it for the last bit.

We got home at 4 - I chopped up our Christmas turkey (that we never ate) and we had blackened barbecue turkey for dinner. Actually, it turned out quite well - the potatoes were the ones that got burnt. We had a quick swim (Ellis now likes to be tossed) and thankfully, both kids fell asleep rather quickly tonight.

Tomorrow we might take the train to the beach. We are gluttons for punishment.