Day 15 - around Canberra and last full day of our road trip.

Today we had one aim - and that was to conquer Questacon. Questacon is a very hands on science "museum". Ms10 vaguely remembers going there six years ago - but she is a self-confessed "science nerd" and was beside herself with excitement once she realised our trip included Canberra and a visit to Questacon. We weren't disappointed - it was as excellent as we remember - and the kids had a fabulous day pushing buttons, pulling levers, jumping on things, dropping from heights, playing with air flow machines, watching a "show" about liquid nitrogen and many many other things. Ms10 in particular was grinning from ear to ear all day, but all three of the kids had a great time.

After we had conquered Questacon, we headed across the road to the national library, and did a quick loop through the national treasures gallery and a small art exhibit. We also found a photo exhibition we'd heard about which included "then" and "now" photos of Canberra.

After the library we headed out to Woden cemetery where we visited a plaque which has been included in the garden of remembrance part of the cemetery. The plaque recognises many returned soldiers, but in particular we were looking for the one with hub's grandfather's name on it. We had visited it six years ago, and surprisingly found it amongst the many many plaques relatively quickly.

After this we did a drive past of Government House and then a number of embassies in Yarralumla - trying to explain to the kids what embassies were as we did.

We then decided it was too early for dinner but too late to go back to our apartment and then head out again, so we detoured past Parliament House, and set about to climb the big green grassy roof. The kids hen proceeded to thoroughly enjoy rolling down the grass "roof" like Jack and Jill. Once wasn't enough so they ran up and rolled down a few more times. Mr8 then got he idea of somersaulting down the grass hill - so he went about a third of the way and and somersaulted. The kids were full of laughter, and you have to wonder - where else in the world can an 8 year old boy do 21 somersaults down the "roof" of their national Parliament House? Pretty cool!

After all the rolling antics, it was time for dinner and we found a Korean BBQ restaurant in Manuka that we'd heard about. The novelty of a deep dish of red hot coals being placed on your table and then cooking your own meat on it was pretty cool - but not so sure it was great value for money. But we can at least tick it off the list.

Now we're back into packing mode after having been settled here for four nights straight. As always, there's things we didn't get to see this trip that we'll be keen to come back another time to investigate further. We didn't make it to the National Museum - but had been there last time so had pushed it down the list of priorities knowing we'd only get there if we had time. But with yesterday being so focused on the various Anzac ceremonies, we inevitably did run out of time. Mr8 was quite disappointed to have missed the museum, but we've reminded them all that sometimes it can be nice to have a reason to plan to come back to a place. Both Canberra and Melbourne have done that this trip.

So, time to pack bags and head home tomorrow...