New Hope Valley Railway

New Hope Valley Railway opened for the season just a few weeks ago. We had been planning to take Aidan for several weeks so he could ride a real train and were all excited. It was a much shorter drive than I expected, and we all really enjoyed our day. They had some model trains set up near the entrance and Aidan wanted to go inside the fence to play with them so bad! Actually, that would have been one thing that would have made it even better, if they had toy trains the kids could actually play with. They had several real train cars set up that you could check out, and Aidan thought that was pretty cool. Our time slot was sold out, so we got in line early to make sure Aidan had a good seat (even though I didn't know what a good seat was!). Somehow we ended up on the train car with the fewest people, so we had plenty of room and were able to switch sides for the ride back. Aidan thought it was really cool, but fell asleep on the way back! The bump of the train really was quite relaxing and the temperature was perfect!


Just getting there



Model Thomas
Bob the builder (which Aidan also loves)
Clearly, very excited!!!






The steam locomotive that took our train
Checking out some of the cars on display

Waiting patiently for the ride to start
Literally watching Dada's watch for the big hand to get on the three so we could get started on our ride
The big hand finally made it to the three!!! Here we go!
The locomotive coming back around to hook up to the other end of our cars and take us back to the station
Right before falling asleep in my lap
Back at the station and ready to go get lunch

After the ride, we had lunch and then took Aidan to McDonald's for a milkshake. An overall wonderful day for everyone!