Lyon, France

The kids had a long weekend mid-September where we decided to head to Lyon for one night.  It was a short drive of approximately 3 hours with beautiful views of the French Alps and countryside.  Lyon is the third largest city in France.  At first I had no interest in packing again since I still hadn't recovered from our travels, but I decided to make the most of our trip and booked a hotel for one night.  Our hotel was across the street from a large park that included a free zoo and a short bus ride to an "American" sized mall.  We barely made a dent in the mall, but did find colored jeans for all the kids.  Yes, that includes Aaron who had to settle for turquoise and royal blue since they didn't have his size in red and yellow.  Hmm, will be interesting to see how this experience will influence the kids fashion : )

Picture in Old Town.

After spending our first day shopping and taking in the tastes of Lyon, we headed to Old Town before heading home.  Our first stop was to a miniature museum.  While very interesting to see all the different sets, it didn't hold the kids interest for long because they very few were from movies and if they were, they didn't know the movies.

One of the sets at the miniature museum.

Quick picture before leaving the museum.

Looking up at the Cathedral from the market.  We took the funicular up to get a closer look.

Looking down over Lyon.

Kiddos and Lyon in the background.

There was a huge meeting in front of the cathedral of their version of boy/girl scouts.  I am not sure what they are called in France, but I believe the troops are combined so there isn't boy and girls scouts.  Hailey is in Girls Scouts here.  It is actually American Girl Scouts and so far she seems to really enjoy all the fun and creative things they get to do.  There is also Swiss Scouts, but it is structured like France and also in French, which isn't a problem for her, but I didn't learn about it until shortly after I signed her up for Girls Scouts.  I guess I will stick to Circus in French for her and maybe add Hip Hop if she decides she wants to do it.

Kids on a side door of the cathedral with their purchases. 

As we were walking around we came across these storage containers where graffiti was being added.  Graffiti is viewed very differently here and is looked at as a form of artistic expression.  In fact, Sydney had a graffiti lesson in her art class at school last year.  To complete the lesson they all were able to graffiti their name on a retaining wall at school.  We were actually there recently and it is still there.  You see it everywhere when walking around and after awhile they may paint over it, but for the most part it is left alone as it is a form of expression.

One of the artists working.

As you may have noticed, I am a little behind on the blog since our trip to Lyon happened a few months ago, but I am going to get caught up in the next two weeks since I can put my other job of travel planner aside for the time being.  While I enjoy all the exploring we are able to do, it requires a lot of research and time, but we have school holidays planned and booked through April so can take a little break and get the blog caught up.  I may have mentioned before the kids have 2 weeks off in October, December, and April with another week off in February which is called "ski week".  Most everyone travels during those holidays so even if you decided to stay home, the kids would be bored silly since there isn't anyone around to play with.  So, like they say, "when in rome...".  We are truly blessed to have the opportunity to travel the rest of the world!