England Escape!

While the kids were out exploring the local parks with their grandparents, James and I were exploring the English countryside in the lake district.  Ed and Georgina were fantastic hosts.  Our first stop was a waterfall to stretch our legs:

 Followed by a hike up along the lake:

 We ran into a lot of these adorable guys along the way:

 And here we stopped at (not so much King) Arthur's Table.  Ed, Georgina and James are standing at the entrance to what was likely a generic gathering place in the totally wrong era to be King Arthur:

 Some castle ruins:

 We also hit Hadrian's wall with a stop at the Roman baths:

 James atop the wall:

 This would have been the food storage area of the Roman fort.  The small doors were to allow dogs in to eat the rats.  Sky would not have made the cut:

 And the latrine:

 Another misty castle:

 After a few relaxing days in the country we headed back to London to take in some of the sights.  We just happened upon a small parade of the royal guard, which we can only assume was out in celebration of National Pancake day.

 We then headed to the Churchill War Rooms which were very cool and where it became very apparent that Churchill was kind of a dick to work with:

 The reinforced concrete walls:

 The map rooms which were found pretty much exactly as they had been left at the end of the war (creepy mannequin excluded I would assume):

 Some more downtown sights:

 On the last night we went out to a fantastic dinner at one of Ed's favorite restaurants on the Thames.

It was a great trip and we were so glad we could finally make it out there and since it seems like the kids and grandparents didn't mind us leaving them at all, we may have to make it a more frequent destination :-)