Since Jamis and Marcie had picked up a rental car on Saturday night, we decided to get some sightseeing in right away. We planned to go visit some local castles Monday morning-ish. But they were on vacation, my kids were on vacation, and no one felt like rushing out of the house right after they got up. So we enjoyed a leisurely morning, a delicious lunch and then slowly got ready to go out exploring. The first castle on the list was Schloss Lenzburg, about 30 minutes away.
We were surprised to find the parking lot so empty, but considered it a stroke of luck. That is until we were about halfway up the hill to the actual castle, and some people coming down informed us that the castle was closed! We, of course, kept continuing up, just to see for ourselves, and yep! on Mondays it closes early. Exactly 5 minutes before we had arrived. Darn it! 
Fortunately, there was a really fun playground with miniature houses for the kids to play in. And a really nice trail all around the castle grounds that Jamis and Marcie explored, while we watched Charlotte.
Also, since no one was around, I convinced Nick to climb up these super old, super steep stairs onto the old lookout tower/bridge thing. 
Normally the gate is locked shut, but for some reason it was open, so I took that as permission. 🙂 He barely stood still long enough for me to take the picture, but he hurried back down. Didn’t want to get in trouble, what a good boy.
The kids wanted me to take pictures of them in every single little wooden house. I won’t post them all here, even my mom get tired of that!, but here are a few of the best ones. 
Then we headed back down to the parking lot, planning to head over to another local castle. On the way to the car we saw the back of this sign, covered in everyone’s tickets from the castle. 
It’s like tradition now to put them there, I guess! Next time we actually have an entrance ticket, we will stick it there, too.
Fortunately the drive over to Schloss Halwyl was beautiful, because this castle also closes at 4 on Mondays. But again, the grounds provided entertainment enough. 
Here the kids are reenacting scenes out of Robin Hood. There was a path all around the outer rim of the castle grounds here as well, so we took a nice walk in the dwindling sunshine. 
Sarah found this huge branch full of dried leaves lying on the side of the path, and immediately picked it up. First she carried it on her shoulder, calling out “leaves for sale, leaves for sale” as she walked along. But then it got too heavy, so she opted to just drag it behind her the.entire.way!
We ran across this cat, napping in the sunshine on the side of the trail. It also proceeded to follow us the.entire.way! Maybe it liked chasing Sarah’s leaves. Or it was just glad someone petted it, I don’t know. At one point, Jamis and Marcie got way ahead of us. We couldn’t even see them. Which I was actually glad about. I really needed to go to the bathroom and here was my golden opportunity! 🙂 The kids kept a lookout for me, aren’t they sweet? hahahaha
When we had gone full circle around the castle, we decided to go down the driveway a bit. 
You can see the drawbridge better from there, and also we could see the old family tombstones set up on display. 
We had fun speculating how they had lived, and were trying to figure out who were the parents, and who were the kids. Then it was time to go home. The drive back was just as gorgeous, and thanks to my GPS we didn’t get too lost. 🙂
So lessons learned from the day: check opening times of places you want to visit in the morning, kids don’t care about seeing the insides of buildings as long as there is a place to play outside, and I love how fast and reckless my husband drives. It takes way too long to get to places if you are always worried about pesky things like speed limits. 🙂