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Another day out on our staycation was Beamish in Durham

Hubby was born in the North East so has been to Beamish lots of times over the years. He started with school trips (more years ago than he would like to say) to recent trips with his nephews, but according to him it keeps getting bigger and better every year.

Me and the girls had never been and I think this is really the first year we could have, but more on that later.

Beamish in Durham is an open air museum which tells the story of the North East during the 1820′s, 1900′s and 1940′s. Instead of recreating scenes of life in those times inside a museum, Beamish has actually brought entire houses, shops, schools etc to the site and rebuilt them.

So as you wander around you actually get a feel for how the villages and towns would have looked and felt. There is an entire pit village, a railway station, a farm and shops selling old fashioned produce.

The site is huge and you get from area to area by bus or tram, you can walk but that would have been a bit much for our Mini Travellers.

It costs £18 per adult to get in (under 5′s are free) but that then gives you access for the year.  If you live close by the yearly pass is a lovely idea, my SIL lives near Darlington and she has been at least 4 times this year with her boys age 6 and 8, so she came along to join us with her eldest who has now finished school.

So having arrived and only having had to pay for me and hubby (our 3 being under 5 and my MIL and SIL have annual passes) we made our way out of the entrance hall to the first tram stop to much excitement.

The old trams (some are open top) and old buses are a lovely way to make your way round the park, and my 3 were so excited about the prospect of going on a new form of transport (It doesn’t take much).

We saw lots of families making their way on and off the trams with their single buggies, however with our double buggy we would have struggled.   We would have done it, but it wouldn’t have been fun.

This year however with no pram in tow, my three (3.5 and twins aged 2.5) loved hopping on and off the trams and buses and deciding where to sit and watch the world go by.

So whilst for the adults Beamish is about all the old buildings and seeing how things worked in the good old days. For our toddlers it was all about the trams, the wide open spaces to run about, the ice cream (which was really good value and not over priced like it often is when you are a captive market) and the carousel.

For the girls the day was all about the carousel. It made our day. Having been to Lightwater Valley the day before and the twins not being tall enough to go on the carousel even accompanied, the fact that we could all go on made them feel like ‘really big girls’ and questions like ‘have we grown overnight Mummy?’ made me giggle.

They absolutely loved it. The setting is beautiful in the middle of a wide open field, next to a sandpit and the swingboats were real treat.

We loved it and will probably be back, particularly as our next visit will be free.