Our big Summer vacation - Scotland and England

This was our big two week summer vacation to England and Scotland. We flew into London Stansted Airport, then spent one night in Doncaster, two nights in Stirling, 7 nights in Aviemore, 1 night in Manchester, England, and 1 night in London. This trip took a lot of planning and was quite the road trip and adventure.

We had just arrived in London. The boys did great on the flight.

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Now it's time to go through customs and then get our rental car.

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From the London airport, we drove about three hours to Doncaster, England.

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We got a good night's sleep and then had a good breakfast.

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Time to get in the car and continue our road trip.

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This was our second stop. Stirling, Scotland. We stayed two nights in this charming town.

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We took a walk to the Stirling Castle. We lucked out with amazing weather.

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Picture in front of Robert the Bruce Statue.

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Here's where we dropped off the boys so we could have a date night.

Just kidding.

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A statue of William Wallace.

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Having dinner in Stirling.

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Max has had enough sitting. He wants to run.

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We drove to Edinburgh, Scotland for the day. We found a great park near the castle.

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Again we lucked out with beautiful weather. We had anticipated rain everyday!

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We walked around the park looking at all the monuments and learning a little history.

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Tom took the three older boys on the merry-go-round. What you can't see is Max's tears.

He was upset that he didn't get to go too.

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A view out our window from our hotel in Stirling.

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Our hotel use to be a school but had been renovated.

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Before we left Stirling, we made a stop at the William Wallace monument.

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During our trip, DJ read two books on William Wallace.

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Tom, DJ, Noah, and Lincoln climbed to the top. 262 stairs!

Carey missed out on the morning workout.

She stayed in the car with Max during his morning nap.

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They made it to the top!

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What a view!

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You can see the William Wallace monument sticking up in the distance.

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This was a scene many times during our two week vacation.

We planned many of our driving times during their nap times.

Next stop - the Scotland Highlands where we stayed for one week in a little town called Aviemore.

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This was a favorite spot for our family. Rothiemurchus Estate near our new hotel. The boys were able to feed the fish and go trout fishing.

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We all rented bikes and went on a three hour bike ride!

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Lincoln and Max weren't too crazy about this idea. I think they would've preferred riding their own bikes. Max napped for a little bit but cried a lot of the time.

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Even with the crying, we got to see some of the most beautiful scenery.

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Time for a break.

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The boys had fun getting wet before we finished up our biking.

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Off to find the Loch Ness Monster! The boys are getting rested before the big adventure.

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Noah is studying about the Loch Ness Monster before we get to the lake. We went to the Uquhart Castle on Loch Ness and were able to listen to the bagpipes.

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Landmark theme park in Aviemore, Scotland.

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DJ going down the slide by himself, the scary one.

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DJ climbing the tree like a monkey with no fear and then doing the sky dive.

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Pictures of one of the lochs in Aviemore where we stayed.

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We visited Scotland's free roaming herd of reindeer in the Cairgorn National Park.

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Poor Noah. In this picture, he was on the recovery. He had gotten an ear infection a few days into our trip. He ended up with a 104 fever and we took him to the local medical center. In this picture, he's still not feeling great but doing better. We're glad we brought our double jogging stroller. We were able to still able to go out while Noah rested and recovered.

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They had this outdoor activity center at our hotel.

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While the boys jumped on the trampolines, Max followed around the activity center's dog.

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DJ, Noah, and Lincoln jumping at the same time.

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Tree top trail at Landmark theme park. We did this park on two different days.

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Lincoln is a natural fisherman, catching his first trout on Rothiemurchus Estate near our hotel. Lincoln insisted on doing everything by himself to include carrying his fishing pole to and from the lake. Noah also caught his first fish or rainbow trout here.

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Enjoying the clown show at the hotel.

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We drove to the Eilean Donan Castle, one of the most photographed castles in Scotland and where the movie Highlander was filmed.

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Our hotel also had a fun zone or indoor play area for the kids. Our hotel was super kid friendly. We only used the fun zone for 2 of the 8 days we were there because the weather was too beautiful to be inside!

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We stopped here to get some snacks for our road trip.

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They had some big trout at Rothiemurchus. Dad was in heaven. We fished here for four out of the 8 days were in Aviemore.

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DJ doing a nice job of a reeling in a 3-4 pound rainbow trout.

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Eating in Manchester, England We drove five hours to Manchester from Aviemore and spent the night here prior to driving to London to take the plane ride home.

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Manchester, England

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Walking around Manchester.

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Our last day in Manchester.

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While I got to spend a little time shopping in Manchester, Tom surprised me by finding this music store and bringing Noah and DJ inside to get sized for violins.

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DJ and Noah are ready to start violin lessons next month! Even though Noah isn't smiling in this shot, they both are really excited to have violins. Lincoln cried for about an hour after leaving this shop. He couldn't understand why he wasn't getting a violin too.

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