A week of sickness with one adventure.

This week Mark has been off.  I have to say that I feel pretty horrible because the whole family (except for him of course) has been sick.  It's the yearly cold that we always get with runny noses and coughing that you just pray will go away soon.  I knew the whole week that Mark wanted to go somewhere.  He hadn't really picked a spot but he's always up for an adventure.  So finally Thursday we decide that today is the say we are going out.  Everyone was feeling pretty good.  Armed with tissues and snacks we set out for the castle of Mark's choice, Bolsover Castle.

The castle was only and hour and a half away.  Earlier in the week it had snowed here but the snow was pretty well melting or had melted.  As we were driving North we could tell that the snow had not melted yet and there was more of it.  We reached the town of Bolsover and had to find the castle parking.  We ended up going down in a valley.  When we turned around the castle was on a hill over looking the valley that we were in.  The picture I took absolutely does not do it any justice!

We went back up the hill to go to the parking lot for the castle and we didn't want to turn into the parking lot because it had not been cleared off and was full of snow but certain driving circumstances made us have to pull in.  So we got stuck in the parking lot.  Our van was not going anywhere.  I was looking around thinking if Mark can't get us out who are we going to ask for help.  I looked out the window and Mark and could tell he was looking at something.  I turned around and another car had gotten stuck in the parking lot too.  Mark went over there to them to help them get out and guess what, they were Americans too.  So two Americans stuck in the parking lot.  I hope no one is looking.  ha ha.  We helped each other get unstuck and parked and walked up to the castle and it was closed.  AH!  The shop was open though so we looked around in there for a while and came back out and got in the van.  (I know Mark and I were about to die.  We had finally gotten everyone out and went somewhere, gotten stuck, and the place was closed.  *sigh*)  Here is my picture of the valley from above.  It was so beautiful.  We plan on going back soon so hopefully there will be better pictures.

On the way to the castle we saw a sign for the Sherwood Forest visitors center so on the way back we stopped there.  It was starting to get dark but there were some little shops there.  It was still cool being there.  In the middle of the shops they had a Robin Hood statue that they had put a Santa hat on.  We all thought that was comical.

So that was our big adventure for the week.  On a side note... When we we driving we passed a boarding school for girls aging from 3-13.  3!  Isn't that a little young to be sending you kid away to school.  I can't imagine sending Aurora away to a school with out me.  My goodness!

So the goal this week is to get better before Christmas and New Years.  I hope we can do it.

Have a great week.