Hardenburg Castle

Yesterday we went to a Natural History Museum, a great park, and the Hardenburg Castle. I love our ward and that we do fun outings every week. Everyone is so nice and has helped to make this summer fly by super fast. We started off at the museum. Normally my kids whiz through the rooms and all the exhibits while I am trying to read a few of the signs and figure out what it is that I'm zooming by at lightning speeds. But since this time all the displays and signs were in German, I couldn't really read what it was that I was missing out on, so we all just went quickly through the different rooms while the kids 'ooh'ed and 'ahh'ed at the science stuff.
Here are a bunch of the kids as we start off in the museum.

There was a neat water wheel outside for them to climb on and spin.

There were cool rocks and crystals, insects and some geological displays, but the room that got all their attention was the stuffed animal room. Not stuffed animals like Tigger and Snoopy. Stuffed as in "Taxodermist Workshop This Way". Huge displays of bears, boars, deer (which Mason kept calling "Santa's reindeer!"), and other scary stuff that we will be having nightmares about for a few weeks.



Here's Ella with her birthstone, a huge amethyst.

We went to a cool park at the base of the castle for a picnic lunch and some fun. Here's Ella on the zipline.





Here's my favorite picture of the day: Mason 'playing house' with his friend Kayla. There was a little wooden house and the two of them would go inside, sit down, and giggle. With no mortgage payments, bathrooms to clean, or laundry to do, I'm thinking I may look into moving in too.

The castle was at the top of a hill. Not super steep, but enough of a climb to think that an escalator right about now would have been looked upon as manna from heaven. And since I had Mason on my back for all of the day besides the time at the park, my climb was an extra 35 pounds harder. I just kept thinking, "This means I can eat double dessert, right?"
Here's Mason in the backpack after making it to the top of the hill.



Here's Colton at the base of the castle after hiking up the hill.


The castle has some dark rooms or small tunnels that can be viewed with the aid of a flashlight, so my kids were excited to pull out their flashlights and/or headlights to do a little exploring.
You probably can't make out Ella in this picture exploring a tunnel with her headlight, but trust me, she's in there.

We found this huge cup in the middle of a courtyard that all the kids wanted to climb in. Good thing there wasn't a big bad witch around because it kinda resembled a huge cooking pot. Or bird bath. If only if was raining and the kids had their bathing suits, we could have turned it into a mini jacuzzi.




Here's Jaxon and Ella at the top of the castle.



Here's Jaxon explaining to a friend how he would defend this castle from an attck in medieval times. He is always a strategist at heart.


And, you know the rules, how do we end every German outing?


Eis!! Mason tried erdbeer this time (strawberry) and liked it. Ella had erdbeer and vanille (vanilla is still her favorite) and Colton had two scoops of strattiacella (chocolate chip).
This is what happens on the ride home after playing hard at a park and exploring things from the comfort of Mom's backpack: