Ireland Days 8-9 (based in Limerick), Day 10, fly home!

Day 8 - Dingle to Limerick & Bunratty Castle We left Dingle in the morning and headed to Limerick and to a place called Bunratty Castle. It is a "tower" castle - you can probably tell why by looking at it - it is just one big tower! The rooms were furnished with period pieces which was interesting.

Along with the actually, truly, old castle, there is sort of a disney-fied historical park - reproductions of many different style older homes and towns. The boys loved the playground though. It was good to let them run around. (See below) The real castle was an adventure: These are the crazy narrow/steep stairs we all climbed up and down.

Hotel Playground - the boys had a lot of fun here. We were staying at a really random Raddison Blu which wasn't particulary nice but had a crazy spa with everything (botox anyone?) and a helipdad (the latter not advertised). This was strange as we picked this hotel as it was quite near (15 minutes on an easy road) to the airport. Also funny, while at the playground I kept hearing an unusual noise - we then realized there were cows just next door!

Day 9 - Rock of Cashel/St. Patrick's Rock On our last full day, we took an hour drive to this amazing old cathedral - it has a 12th century tower and the church is from the 13th. It is said St. Patrick himself baptized the rulers that lived there. It was home to kings from the 4th century before later becoming a full-time religions site.

We had lunch at a local cafe and headed back to the hotel for an afternoon of packing and relaxing. Day 10 - We had a noon(ish?) flight home so ate breakfasted and headed to the airport. After a slight detour looking for gas, we managed to return the rental car and check in. We cleared US customs/immigration in Shannon which was nice, but meant we had the ludicrous experience of going through European security and then going through the exact same thing again (only sans shoes) with US customs officials. It is oh-so-fun pulling out liquids, laptops and folding strollers 2 times in 5 minutes:) Coming home from Canada last year we cleared customs in Halifax but US-bound flights had their own wing so we only had to do the security once. At least when we landed we got to go straight to get our bags and head home. Our flight was not too full, which was nice and the boys were as good as they possibly could be on a 6+ hour day flight. They pretty much watched shows and snacked which was a-OK with me! Overall it was an amazing trip and Steve and I never dreamed it would go half as well as it did.