Yay for long weekends!

This past weekend was a long one for us with the Aussies celebrating the Queens Birthday. We originally had plans of leaving on Friday and driving to Canberra to see the nations capital, but with all the other travel planning we were doing for our winter break we didn't manage to get any accommodation booked. So home in Melbourne we stayed. Hannah and Tyler made the big decisions of what to do for the weekend, and they made some great choices!

Saturday morning was a leisurely and lazy start to our day, and then the kids decided we should check out a place called Scienceworks that they had heard about from their friends. It's a science museum with a hands on approach for the kids. There wasn't one exhibit that they couldn't touch and try out. They had so much fun checking out all the exhibits that we didn't even have time to check out the planetarium. Good thing we bought the family membership so that we can go back!

Since when do telephones have a cord and a dial?

Can you find the banana? 

My strongman ;)

Sunday started off slowly too, but once we got ourselves moving we decided to head into the city to the South Melbourne Market. Not as big as the Queen Victoria Market further into the city, but just as fun.  The markets here are amazing, I'm not sure that the Byward is going to cut it after this!

We bought some lovely crisp green apples and Hannah helped me to make them into an apple pie. 

Monday was the public holiday which saw most of the city closed down. Tyler was keen to see some of the dinosaurs he's been reading about in a new book so we decided to hop on the train and head into the city to the Melbourne Museum.

Walking in this city always provides material for great new pictures. There is always so much going on and there's a great mix of space for people, cars, trams and nature. Some of the trees in the city are even showing the autumn colours. 

The dinosaurs were exactly what Tyler was looking for. I always forget how big they are until I see them up close!

This is the ant dome. Since when do ants have iPods?

Heading back to get the train back home.

I thought that I had seen most of the train stations on our line, but this was a new one for me. The Melbourne Central Station has 3 floors of shops on the way down to the train lines and it has the most amazing ceiling! I try hard not to look too much like a tourist, but I just couldn't resist a picture of it.

At the end of the weekend we were glad that we had stayed home instead of travelling. There are still so many things in our very own city that we haven't seen!