Scotland Weekend Day 1

Daddy had a long weekend which was such a blessing!!  It has long been a dream of my own to go to Scotland - I just didn't know we'd be able to go so soon!!  So I was especially excited to start our journey.  Here are some pictures from day one.

We're on our way to... Scotland!!!

Back seat crew

We got the kids some non-messy playdough (which was always a favorite part of road trips for me when I was younger).  Seth made this great crab!

Sayer and I built this plane together

We drove through Luxembourg

(from what we experienced, they don't make you pay for restrooms over there!  That may be another thing I haven't mentioned before - most places in Germany do!! :)

A little town

Scenery

Look at all those logs!

Hey! Only 127 kms to Calais!!

Can you tell we're in France?!  :)

We're getting quite close to the ferry now!

We're in Calais!!!

It was interesting to think that this is where the Germans originally thought we were going to cross on D-Day.

Daddy and mommy made a quick dash inside to get tickets

We had to wait in line for...

...border control

This was an adventure.  We finally get up to the checkpoint about 30 minutes before our ferry leaves.  Low and behold though, they won't check our passports here like normal because there are so many of us, so we have to all go inside the building where they check everyone from buses etc.!!!  In we go, unfortunately right after a huge bus just unloaded and basically filled the whole place.  We were afraid we were going to miss our ferry!!  Thankfully they're ended up being a different line for non foot passengers which was much shorter and since that was us, we got through at a much quicker rate.

There were lots of seagulls!!  I love seagulls :)

After getting all our passports checked, we hurriedly loaded back up - thankful that it looked like we still had enough time to make our ferry.  When we pulled up to the gate about 15 minutes before the leaving time though the lady said we were too late and would have to wait for the next ferry (with your tickets, you can go on either the one just before or after without a change in cost).  We were all rather disappointed as we still had an hour and a half on the ferry and then 2 1/2 more hours in the car once we got to the other side!!  We asked her if she could check with her boss just one more time.  I think she could tell we were all quite disappointed at that news, so she called her boss one more time... and they said we could go!!!  Yay!!!

We're boarding!!!

Getting ready to go up on the main floor

We crossed on the "Pride of Kent"

Eating dinner aboard the ferry

Brothers

Poor Stasia was seasick 

After dinner we went up on deck - nothing but the English Channel in sight!

Daddy and Mommy

Us kids

The white cliffs of Dover are beautiful!!

Dover castle!!

There were tons of seagulls

Shenandoah loved them!!!

We load back up...

...and set our feet on English soil for the first time (or rather our car wheels :)

It was great to be in an English speaking country again!!!

Our first experience driving on the wrong side of the road!!!