Boston!

We struggled a bit with our plans for Easter break this year.  We discussed heading down to Florida, but with Easter being so early, we had some concern that the weather could by a little iffy.  It's a long way to go to be trapped inside.  And if we did go, it was almost a certainty that we would have to drive because the air fares are a little ridiculous.  (Seriously.  You could fly to Europe for the same price.)  This combined with the boys' desire for us to take a trip somewhere as a family of five, led us to the idea of a few days exploring Boston, MA.

Boston it is!  We had a fantastic trip.  One of the benefits of traveling with children is the ability to see the world through a fresh set of eyes.  Everything and anything is new and exciting to the boys.  It brings me such joy to watch them experience new things.  They loved the hotel and couldn't believe they had their own room to share with their very own tv!  The hotel had an amazing indoor pool area, complete with a mini basketball court, a climbing wall, ping pong, Foosball and a gigantic projection screen that played kids movies.  Nothing says vacation like watching The Lightening Thief from a pool.

Our first night we enjoyed pizza pool side, swimming and playing basketball.  The next day, we were off to explore the city.  We opted to do a hop on, hop off trolley tour that included a duck tour of the Boston Harbor.  It was a perfect decision.  We spent the day getting on and off of trolleys, visiting all the sights.  We saw almost everything we could in Boston, including a tour of Harvard and MIT in Cambridge.  We enjoyed lunch at Faneuil Hall and dinner in the North End at a traditional Italian restaurant.  Dinner was so good that Griffin announced he could live in this restaurant forever and be happy.

The food was that good. After dinner, we walked to Mike's Pastry and watched the boys eyes bug out of their head a their options.  We loaded up a few boxes of baked goods and went in search of some gelato for Brennan, who sadly couldn't enjoy the Mike's goodness because of his peanut allergy.

Not to worry though, because we quickly found heaven in a gelato shop.  Brennan picked blood orange gelato and inhaled it in blissful splendor.  After his first few big bites, he turned to me, smiled and said, "Mom, this ice cream dances on my tongue."

Hmm, maybe we could live in the North End after all.

Our second day we spent exploring the Museum of Science.  The boys could not get enough of the Museum.  We watched a live show on lightening.  (Griffin pronounced it the coolest thing he had ever seen.)  Aidan and Brennan entered an engineering competition to design and build a claw that could pick up a number of plastic animals when attached to a crane.  Their design worked and made it up on the Leader Board.  (Go Team Buffalo!).   The boys were locked in wind tunnels to feel what a hurricane would be like.  We saw life-size dinosaurs and much, much more.  We finally dragged the boys out of the museum just because we were all starving.  But the boys were thrilled to hear we were going to take the T, Boston's subway, back to Faneuil Hall for lunch.

After we got on the T, I asked Griffin what he thought.  He shrugged, looked around the subway car and said to me, "I thought there would be people sleeping on the seats.  On TV there are always people sleeping on the seats."

Heh.

After lunch, the boys wanted to spend time souvenir shopping.  Many hours were spent agonizing over the perfect souvenirs, until finally, Aidan selected a Boston Celtics t-shirt and pennant and Brennan and Griffin picked Boston Celtic basketballs to bring home.

We spent the rest of the day exploring the waterfront and watched ferries come into dock.  We also managed to get back to Mike's Pastry one more time just to stock up.

Griffin enjoyed his second day of attention wearing his beloved Buffalo Sabres hoodie.  We never knew that one way to guarantee a whole lot of attention and meeting many new friends was to wear Buffalo Sabres clothing.  Griffin got hoots and hollers wherever we went and we met so many people from Buffalo.  (The absolute best was one of the souvenir shops. We walked in and one of the employees yelled "Sabres in the house!"  Griffin lapped it up.)

That night, Chris surprised Aidan with tickets to the Celtics game.  Brennan and Griffin were happy to spend the night at the pool, swimming their hearts out, and trying out their new basketballs on the hotel court.  We even enjoyed room service.  (Something they had begged to try when we first checked into the hotel.)

All in all, the trip surpassed all of our expectations.   The boys have already asked if we can go back someday.  I think we can make that happen.