More Pesach

Continuing with our Passover story...on Tuesday, we headed out of Jerusalem. Our plan was to go to the tank museum in Latrun and then to Mini Israel before going to Tel Aviv and then home. We went to Latrun and it was hotter than Hell so we decided to skip Mini Israel and go straight to Tel Aviv for some air conditioned lunch. But first we enjoyed the tank museum. Simon loved climbing on all the tanks and pretending to drive them.
We went to Tel Aviv to go straight to Independence Hall which is a museum where you hear a recording of Ben Gurion reading the Declaration of Independence. It is supposed to be very cool, but unfortunately it was closed for renovations. We went out for lunch instead at a restaurant that had its wall decorated with what looked like mini-pillows that were velcroed to the wall. Of course Eli spent most of lunch pulling them off. After lunch, we went to Nachalat Binyamin which is an outdoor artist/crafts market that is there every Tuesday. We walked around and did some shopping and then decided it was really too hot to do anything else so we came home. Farrah and I went to the super market and bought tons of food and Farrah made baked ziti for dinner that was good but would have been really good if it wasn't kosher for pesach ziti. The kids got to go to bed at a normal hour for the first time in a long time.
On Wednesday, we got up bright and early to drive up to the Golan. It was super hot again--47 celsius, which I think translates to about 117 degrees or something insane like that. We went to the Golan Heights Winery and had a tour given by a little tiny Rabbi-looking man who was very funny. Simon and Eli loved tasting the wine, my little lushes. At the Seder, I asked Abby's father who is a pediatrician how bad it is for kids to have wine since Eli can easily drink an entire wine glass if we'd let him. He said it's ok...but it can make them hypoglycemic and give them seizures. No more wine for Eli:( We went to the store after the tour and Simon really wanted to pick out some wine for himself. He got "apple juice wine" and then proceeded to drop it on the floor and it spilled everywhere. He got another one and mostly liked the mesh bag that it came in that he thought looked like Spiderman's web.
From there, we followed signs that we had seen on the road to a kosher for pesach restaurant. It overlooked the Jordan River and the food was not so great, but it was air conditioned so we didn't care. We were too hot to do anything else, so we went to Tiberias where we hoped to go to the beach. Turns out the beaches in Tiberias are crap. There is no sand and just rocks, but not little tiny rocks that you can pretend are sand. It's more like big boulders that you climb over in order to get to the water. We passed on the beach and just walked around for a while and Simon went on a pony ride and then we came home. All in all, I think we spent more time driving than actually in the Golan, but the views were very pretty!
On Thursday, Farrah and Barry went to the Diaspora Museum in the morning while David went to work and I tried to keep the kids from bouncing off the walls and killing each other. We were supposed to go to Haifa to the Bahai Gardens, but again it was so hot, so Farrah and Barry went without us and we met the Saltzmans and various relatives of theirs' at the beach in Rishon L'Tzion. We passed an army base on the way at which we could see Patriot Missile launchers. David thought it was cool. I thought it was a little scary. At least there wasn't anyone standing there ready to launch the missiles. The beach was fun--very nice to be in the water on such a hot day. I guess Eli got over his fear of the water that he had in Eilat because he loved going in the ocean and didn't want to get out.
We came home and Simon's friend Ari's twin sisters came to babysit and David and I went to meet Farrah and Barry for dinner in Netanya. We went to a morrocan restaurant that David had been wanting to go to for a long time. The food was good, but David ordered brains and then realized that was gross so he had to send them back. And they didn't have dessert because of Pesach. We walked on the beach for a few minutes after dinner and then came home.
The next morning, Simon said to me "can we play games on the website that they showed me yesterday?" I asked him if he knew what the site was and he said "no, just type in letters until you get to the right one." Luckily, checking the site history showed me the site that Ari's sister's had showed Simon that has lots of games. Now he has more options other than Hot Wheels. I prefer Hot Wheels though because he knows how to play all the games and doesn't need help.
On Friday, everyone except me went to Ceaseria to see the ruins and I stayed home to cook for Shabbos. I got the raw end of that deal but at least we had food for Shabbos/Yom Tov!
We had a very low key dinner and a pretty quiet day today as well.
David and Farrah just went out to see if Felafel Shop is opening tonight so that Farrah and Barry can have felafel in pita before they leave at 2am.
Simon and Eli (and me too) are going to be so sad in the morning when they aren't here anymore, but we've had a really fun time! I can't believe Passover is over already. The kids have one more day of vacation tomorrow and then they go back to school on Monday and I go back on Wednesday. Check my previous posts for the relevant pictures-I'm going to add them now. In this post, the pictures are of: tank museum, popsicles, winery, our tour guide at the Winery, Simon not enjoying the red wine, Simon and Eli at the winery being bribed with lollipops to behave, Eli at the winery, Simon's hot dog sandwich with a hot dog in the middle of 2 hot dogs, somewhere in the Golan, The Jordan River, Simon's pony ride through a parking lot, The Kinneret, Simon and Jordy enjoying some chips (a.k.a the ONLY snack to eat on Pesach), Simon buried in the sand at the beach