Day 12: 25/06/17 Juno Beach and another late night!

So a very late morning, followed by a decision to pile in Eileen the campervan with Sarah and Tabitha to go to Juno Beach as the visitor centre there is supposed to be good for kids. AJ and Esmé were mega excited to go for a ride in the campervan... Esmé is convinced she is going to live in one when she grows up so this made her day! On the way Patrick read the last of our D-Day book to the kids and AJ & E told Tabitha all about Pegasus Bridge as we crossed it on our way. We arrived at Juno beach and had a late lunch before heading off to the visitor centre. We saved a bit of money by making adopting Tabitha into our family for the purposes of a family ticket and it we went. AJ was pretty disappointed that we had missed the last English tour of the bunkers and really didn't engage with the centre anywhere near as he had at Pegasus Bridge. This may have been due to the disappointment about the bunker, or the previous late night, but I do wonder if it was more to do with the fact that the D-Day book didn't have any specific stories based on Juno beach, and that meant he found it harder to identify. I must make a point of making sure we try to find these living books in advance of key trips.

There were kids activity books that Tabitha and Esmé completed, but AJ just wasn't interested. In reality though, the centre wasn't anywhere near as child friendly as we had been led to believe. There was a short film at the start and a slightly longer one at the end and these were the only things that really kept the kids engaged, although the map at the start did give rise to a comedy moment where Esmé tripped over the exhibit and somebody piped up that Esmé had just tripped over France!

The video at the end was really quite moving and after exiting the exhibit we went for a short look at one of the bunkers before heading down to the sands to take a walk on the beach. This sparked some discussion about why British and Canadian soldiers chose to volunteer.

We arrived back at the marina planning a quiet early night... we re-joined the Irish contingent and arranged to take food ashore in 1/2 hour and share an early-ish dinner. Clearly the early night wasn't going to happen. Both kids and adults were having too much fun so another night where the kids were up until midnight. Dread to think what the kids will be like tomorrow!