A day with Thomas

Yesterday Shiori, Saichi and I went to spend a day with Thomas.. the tank engine. Ever since reading the ad on internet about the biggest Thomas the tank engine event in Australia.. I just had to take kids all the way to Ipswich to the Workshops Railway Museum ( about 1 hour away from where we are currently ) to see Thomas, Donald, Douglas, Lady, D199, Annie and Clarabel, and ofcourse Fat Controller.

I've never been to this museum before but I must say I was quite impressed with amount of scientific displays explaining how steam, diesel and electricity work, as well as some historical displays of old steam engines, trains to the newer models, and tons of interactive area for kids to play, small trains that you can ride on, large diorama set with moving trains, large play areas for kids etc. And yes we did all that but this was the day to spend with Thomas and his friends..

Every hour, Fat Controller appeared at different locations and told kids stories about certain engine, he was quite funny and both Shiori and Saichi loved him very much. So we made sure to be there for every one of his performance, while doing all those other activities in between.

We left home pretty early in the morning, only to stop by at Amelia's parent's cafe to have some breakfast and to get takeaway coffee :).. about one hour later we were there nice and early, Saichi kept asking where we are going to see Thomas and kept making the guesses like Home, Tv, Computer etc.. but he got really excited when he saw a Douglas the big black engine sitting in front of him. He wanted to go right in but we had to wait in the line to go into the museum first. Luckily since it was pretty early the place wasn't too busy.. although line behind us got quite long.

And here is the photo right after one of the Fat Controller's show.. Shiori did some drawing of him and wanted to give it to him. He really was quite funny and each show was very interactive for both adult and kids. In one of the show he took us through the museum to show us some of the exhibition.

And photo of kids with Thomas and Fat Controller..

Having a look inside the Thomas

Trying out different dials, knobs and bells.

This is inside of Donald.. one of the twin black engine from Scotland. The actual engine on display is made in Maryborough so it was nice to see the inside of the actual old engine.

And we took photo with Douglas the other twin engine.

I think Shiori and Saichi are actually driving the tilt train here.

And finally with Thomas.

I took few more photos but with my phone so unfortunately i'm not sure how to upload them from here but once I go home.. I'll probably post them in the separately. We had so much fun that I could bring Shiori and Saichi out of one of the play area to even have lunch. In the end we had quick lunch at about 2 and left around 3:30. It was pretty long day but kids had so much fun, and it was all worth it. Besides I do like visiting different type of museum and I do like old trains and steam engines.

I may bring them back again next year as Shiori was requesting... Saichi wanted to go back there the next day.