Autumn Holidays 2016…

i know this is an extremely belated post. We have been back at school for 4 weeks now. i have tried a few times over the last few weeks to get this post written but somehow it never happened. So this week i decided that it has to be written and it got moved to the top of the ‘to-do’ list.

Our autumn holidays was the first 3 weeks of October and while it was not as exciting as last year’s, it was still fun-filled and we managed to do a fair bit.

In the first couple of days, we focussed on getting some housework done. Tobias then went off with one of his best friends to a nearby waterpark, Bernaqua, for an afternoon. The next day, we met up with some friends from Niderwalden at the Toni Zoo for lunch and a lovely walk around the small but well-kept zoo.

One of the highlights was the Foxtrail! We did this scavenger hunt type game around the city of Bern. We did have rather high expectations after reading great reviews. But it was a bit of a let-down. A few of the instructions were not well written, so we got confused and turned around quite a number of times. The helpline was not as helpful. But i think it was because this was originally meant to be worked out in German and being English-speaking meant we understood the instructions differently. We had also expected to learn more about the city as we chased the “fox”. However, there was little write-up to learn from at all. What was expected to take us 2.5 hours, took us 3.5 hours. Oh my, my feet were nearly falling off.

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Top Left: One of the clues, Top Middle: This tunnel took us ages to find, Top Right: Another clue, Bottom: Such a lovely view of the Aare!

It was not a great experience but it was not all that terrible. We did see parts of Bern we would otherwise never venture into and walking along the river was lovely. i can see that it can be quite fun for an adult group of close friends. But we had children with us so such long walking times with very little rewards of learning or anything else made it difficult to justify the costs.

After all that walking, we took it easy and took in a movie the next day. ‘The Secret Life of Pets’ was a great movie and we loved it. Even in German, the story came through nicely as did the funny bits.

As it is our tradition, every year in the first week of October, we attend the Suisse Toy Fair! This year saw us spending more time in the electronic games section (E-games) and it is no surprise as this has been the trend. There was even an entire hall devoted to LAN gaming! Tobias has said he might try and see if he can register for entry for that next year… hmm… this mama doesn’t quite like that idea.

Tobias had a great time in a pallet gun game. He had to queue for about 45 minutes but he thought it was worth it. And it did look like loads of fun.

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Top Left: LAN Gaming, Right: Trying out VR, Bottom Left: Pallet Gun Game

We also put in some practice in our squash game. And watched yet another movie, ‘Miss Peregrin’s Home for Peculiar Children’, which we absolutely loved! Definitely going to get the book!

In between all that, Tobias cooked a dinner of stewed meatballs and a breakfast of healthy blueberry donuts. We also painted our dining area wall a bright sunshine yellow!

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Stewed Meatballs for dinner, they were yummy!
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Delicious Breakfast!
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Our spot of sunshine in the house 😉

On top of that, we hosted 3 guests; Tobias’ best friends stayed for a night, another friend who just had an operation came to stay for a night too and another friend stayed one night as well.

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i took one of our guest on a walk on top of Weissenstein, the mountain behind our place. We were well-rewarded, don’t you think?

So as you can see, we were busy those 3 weeks in October!

syc

Autumn Holiday Week 01…

So we have been on Autumn holidays – it’s 3 weeks of holidays 😉 i just thought i recap some highlights of Week 01.

We had a couple of restful days at home to start with. Then we went to Basel to meet a friend and to watch the latest kids’ movie, Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted. We loved it!

i was expecting more of the same running away stuff and the same used jokes but this one had heart… the previous 2 had heart too but this one just did so much more in taking the audience along on the journey and much more emotional investment without loss of any of the most funny moments on-screen.

i thought the cinema would at least be a little filled up, it being the holidays but here we are again, all alone in the cinema (we were later joined by a mum and her 2 kids who sat behind us):

Once again, the lone figure in a sea of red.

See here for the other empty cinema moment.

Oh, before we went for the movie, we met our friend and her little gal for a Sushi lunch; Tobias’ favourite all-time food! He broke his record and had 8 whole plates of Sushi all by himself! My Sushi Monster 😉

He loves his Sushi!

Then we enjoyed more home time and got started on our Christmas presents for grandparents. i’m not going to say what we are making as we would like to keep it a surprise 😉

On Saturday last week, we went to the Suisse Toy Fair in Bern. i think i mentioned it a couple of times before but never got round to posting about it. This year we all felt that the fair seemed a little smaller or maybe it was because this year was held in a few larger halls instead of the usual various smaller halls all over the BEA Expo.

Tobias enjoyed some time on a mini ATV (you have to pay for these rides, they are like amusement rides):

He was concentrating very hard, not to hit the sides of the track.

We saw the ProJuvenTute get their Guinness World Record for the largest 3D Lego model to be build. They had lots of people over the period of the toy fair come and build different 3D models out of Lego and fixed them all onto a huge Lego map of Switzerland. It was quite cool.

This photo doesn’t quite do it justice. It really was quite a sight.

Of course the thing that one does at a Toy Fair is to try out the toys!

Trying out a new balance board and Slackline.
Of course, we could not miss out on trying the new DS & Wii games!

The highlight for Tobias was getting a photo with his favourite Skylander Character, Gill Grant:

That big smile on his face says it all 😉

The highlight for me was Creaktiv, the section with all the handicraft materials and stuff. i got stuck at the one stall for so long that husband and son came to find me after finishing at the remote-control section 😉

If you like toys or have kids, the Toy Fair is a great way to spend the day. Do take note, food and drinks are more expensive so if you are planning on staying longer than 4 hours (which i recommend), then remember to pack food and drinks, especially for the little ones.

There are quite a few rest areas (Ruhe Zone) with a whole bunch of Fat Boys (large bean bags) where people can just relax or wait for their family members or mothers can feed their babies.

That was Week 01. Will post about Week 02 soon.

syc