The Forces in Europe

In August, the five of us traveled overseas to spend a wonderful two weeks with our dear friends, the Youngs!  Here are our boys with the girls at the airport just after we arrived.

We started in London, where we rented a lovely home that both of our families could fit in.  It was within walking distance to the Southfields underground station, and only about a mile from Wimbledon.  We stayed in London for 5 nights and toured the city, starting with the London Eye.

 A trip to London would not be complete if we didn't visit Buckingham Palace!

Below is one of my favorite photos... it has two of my very favorite people in it!  This is just outside the Tower of London.

The gorgeous London Tower Bridge...

 Michael, Iain, and Sarah toured Wimbeldon...

...while the rest of us toured the HMS Belfast.

We took one day and visited Legoland Windsor.

 We briefly parted with the Youngs and headed to Paris for a couple of nights.  Our first stop was, of course, the Eiffel Tower!

At the bus stop, we met Ulrike, a lovely German woman (who spoke perfect English), and became fast friends.  We still keep in touch via e-mail!

While in Paris, we took a tour bus to all of the other standard tourist attractions - the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame... and then it was off to Scotland!  The Youngs met us at the airport with balloons, flags, and Scottish thistles!  The first place they took us to was the Falkirk Wheel - an amazing engineering wonder!  We rode the boat up the wheel, and Michael got to enjoy his first Irn-Bru soda of the trip.

Just look at this happiness!  

Next stop:  Stirling Castle!  Michael and I have been here before, but it was neat to show the boys all of the wonderful castles in Scotland.

We spent a whole day in St. Andrews - how beautiful!! 

The girls wanted to take us "rockpooling"... that just means looking for creatures in the small pools that the high tide left behind.  Look what I found: 

While we were in St. Andrews, we also visited the cathedral and the castle.  That's where this happy picture was taken:

 While we were touring the northern part of Scotland, we stayed in Pitlochry, which is where the Youngs park their caravan for the summer.  We ate dinner at a nice little restaurant near there.

One of the highlights of our whole trip had to be our day at Landmark Forest Adventure Park!  They have some really cool ropes courses that every one of us (even Maddox) had a go at!

They also had some super fun waterslides...

...but Maddox's favorite part were these motorcycles!

Our wonderful tour of Scotland also found us at Loch Ness.  We looked for Nessie, but she must've been napping.

We toured the Urquhart castle and walked along the Fort Augustus Locks - where we had a fabulous fish & chips dinner!

 
Below is a photo of us at the Hermitage, which was simply stunning!  We witnessed the salmon making death defying leaps up the roaring rapids.

We took a trip into Edinburgh and briefly toured the castle, but it was SO crowded, that we didn't stay there long.  The kids have had such fun climbing on the cannons... now it's our turn.  :)

While we were in Edinburgh, we did take time to climb the Scott Monument... it was worth it!

Our last place to visit was Linlithgow Palace - and it was one of my very favorites.  This is the birthplace of Mary Queen of Scots, and it's surreal to walk down the corridors imagining how royal this palace used to be.

The whole family came over to celebrate Lindsay, as she was turning 10!  We got to meet Audrey's parents, her brother, sister-in-law, niece & nephew, and Iain's mom.  Such a wonderful family!

The day before we left, we took our traditional photo of the nine of us.  This was taken in Iain and Audrey's driveway, in front of the beautiful flower garden her dad designed.

The hardest part was saying goodbye... We can't wait to vacation with the Youngs again!  Love you guys!!!