Sealife Centre, Mini Golf and Xanten

It's half term this week. Yay!  The week started off with a few days relaxing.  I was still resting my ankle (on the mend now), so we didn't do much.  I did manage to squeeze a lunch in with my lovely friend from work.  We had the above ice creams, which were seriously tasty!

On Wednesday morning, Matt's parents arrived.  We took them to school so that they could have a look around, and see Matt's new office for next year (very excited that he's getting an office).  Then we went down the road from school to a bar and leisure centre called XXL.  It's where we go quite often after work on a Friday.  They have ultra violet mini golf, so of course we had to have a go at that.  It was fun, but it takes your eyes ages to adjust to the weird glowing!  Matt won, of course!  But Margaret got a hole in one!

 On Friday the forecast was rain, so we decided to do something indoors.  We went to the Sealife centre in Oberhausen.  This is where the famous world cup predicting octopus was from, and there is a memorial to him at the centre.

The centre was really interesting, with lots to see.  They have a huge tank with a tunnel under it where you can see sharks and a giant turtle.  We paid a bit extra so that we could go on a glass bottom boat tour of this tank.  The turtle was swimming about on the surface, so it was well worth it just to see him.

 On Friday we went for a day trip to Xanten, which I was hugely impressed with.  In fact it was so good, I think I will take next weeks guests there too!  It was a 45 minute train ride away, and is a small medieval town with lots of cafes, ice cream parlours, and little individual gifty shops - just what I love.

The Cathederal was beautiful.  Someone was flying a drone around it to take video and photos of the interesting architecture, so it was rather noisy in there, but the stained glass was lovely.  I especially loved the window that had been designed by the children of the town.

There was an interesting memorial in the crypt for 4 martyrs who had died during the war.  There were memorials for everyone who had died in 4 concentration camps, with barbed wire over the stones that said the camp names.  It was very interesting, and not really what I was expecting in the crypt.

Xanten is famous for it's Roman Archaeological Park, and I can see why!  It was only 9 euros to get in, and there was so much to see.  The amphitheatre was great!

Above are the baths and one of the temples.  Below is the amazing museum.

We were pretty tired after our trip to Xanten, but not too tired to go to the Inland Harbour in Duisburg for some gigantic pizzas!

Tony and Margaret left at 4am on Sunday, but their flight was delayed by 4 hours!  Not a brilliant end to the trip for them, but we had a great time seeing them.

Saturday morning, Matt went to school to play football against the stag party of one of the men who normally plays football after school on Fridays.  We had a birthday party to go to on Saturday evening, which was fancy dress.  We went in Hawaiian costumes, and it was really cold!

So that's our first guests done, now we have 2 more in the next 2 weeks.  Busy times for us, but at least we only have a 3 day week next week.