A Weekend Getaway

Last weekend we took a trip to Lancaster, PA and met up with my sister, brother-in-law and nephew.  On the agenda:  a day at the amusement park Dutch Wonderland and a stop at the Strasburg Railroad for A Day out with Thomas!  We didn’t tell A that we were doing the Thomas adventure until Sunday morning; otherwise I know he would have been bugging us about it for weeks before we left.

Getting out of the NYC area on a Friday night (during the summer) was NO fun at all. What should have been a 3-3.5 hrs car ride ended up taking us 5 hours!  Thank goodness for in car entertainment and dvds ;-)  A was a trooper and have to give him tons of credit for making it through the long car ride (with minimal complaints).

Saturday we hit Dutch Wonderland as soon as they opened.  SMART move.  No lines and the kids got to ride what they wanted.  We stayed until around 2 then went back to the hotel for a nap and came back at 6 & had dinner at the park.  Again, there were NO lines at that time so it was perfect.  We basically cut out the entire part of the afternoon when it got crowded.  I was surprised at how brave A was on all of the rides.  I had fears of him screaming his head off through all of the rides, but nope.  He LOVED all of them, especially the bumper cars and of course the train ride they had.   He must have ridden the train ride 4 or 5 times.  A and my nephew were like 2 peas in a pod all weekend.  They held hands everywhere we went and A was being a great older cousin by watching out for him….although he did almost walk my nephew into a door a couple times while they were holding hands.  LOL

Sunday morning after we had breakfast we told A the surprise that we were going to visit Thomas who had made a special stop at a nearby train station.  He could barely contain his excitement!!  It was so cute.   

Our tickets were for the first train ride of the day, and when we arrived they were still setting up a lot of the tent activities so we just wandered around and looked at the trains…and of course searched for Thomas.  He couldn’t wait to see Thomas and when we found him at the end of the rail yard, he yelled out  “THOMAS!!!”  After the train ride through the PA countryside, we went to visit Sir Topham Hatt in one of the tents.  I was fully expecting A to scream and cry when he saw this person dressed up as the character, but instead we got the complete opposite.  He ran right up to him and gave him a huge hug.  It was so adorable!    The event had so much to see and do – rides, music, food and of course TONS of Thomas things to buy.  We of course couldn’t leave without adding a new train or two three to our collection.

It was a great weekend and I highly recommend a visit if you’re looking for a fun weekend getaway with the kids.