Father Son Fieldtrips

These last few weeks, Quinn and I have been taking fieldtrips on Sunday. Our first, shortly after New Years, was to the German Train Museum in Nürnberg. Quinn loved the fact that we needed to take a bus, train, and subway to get there.

I loved the museum. I wasn't really sure what to expect, but the place was totally designed for kids (and their parents). There was lots of cool stuff, and everything was more or less protected from the curious hands of a 2 year old, sparing me from having to say 'don't touch' a million times.

In the main train hall, they had the Adler next to the ICE. Quinn is posing with the Adler above - the first successful locomotive in Germany, which went initially between Nürnberg and Fürth.

The ICE is the German High Speed train, a Siemens product (Eva works for the 'trains' business unit), which has manifested itself in different countries (Spain, Russia, China).

Along with at least 10 full size trains / locs, there were two floors of stuff to see on the history of trains. I could have spent the whole day there (and will the next time my dad is in town...a great father/son activity for all generations).

At the end, they had a bunch of 'trains' that the kids could ride on (Bobby Cars / Big Wheels), a huge wooden train set (Brio) for the kids to play on, as well as an electric train to try out.

All in all, a great day! We got home at 3pm. Eva was getting worried that disaster struck, and that I'd walk in the door, mad, with a screaming 2 year old. I was smiling from ear to ear...and Quinn was exhausted.

The last two weekends, we have gone to an indoor swimming pool. The first time, as we were leaving, Quinn saw some kids with a soccer ball. Curious, we followed them into the stands, where we could watch another team play.

Indoor soccer...cool.

At first, we were not in the first row, but Quinn wanted to get closer to the action. As 'luck' would have it, when Quinn stood on the first row, a steel bar was directly in his line of sight. I seemed to always have this problem as a kid (always a bit too short), so I could empathize with the little guy.

So...I let Quinn stand on my backpack.

We must have watched soccer for 90 minutes. Quinn stood perfectly still the whole time. An amazing feat for any two year old.

Almost all week, Quinn kept asking to swim and watch soccer...so we did it again.

Great fun for both father and son (and a nice break from the boys for Mama).