A little late start getting up but cracked on packing the bags and cases. Managed to cram in all our goodies and existing gear in to all the cases. Not to mention spreading out the weight of the wine we picked up 😀
We were all ready and out the hotel by 11am.

It was our last day in Toronto and we had a final chance to visit the exhibition that Li was keen on, or go to the aquarium which Rebecca was much more interested in; On arrival at the aquarium we were a little surprised first of all by the number of people! Thousands of them, mostly Chinese groups wandering around like ants and just getting in the way, but we pressed on, particularly given the entry cost.
  
A good number of tanks were on display and extremely clean. They look after the place really well that was obvious. The key attractions included a tank full of gigantic Rays and another with Jellyfish, but without a doubt the best was the walk through shark area, including a swordfish that we’ve never seen before. Rebecca was in heaven.

  
  
William loved watching the fishes and the larger they were the better. The swordfish was most impressive amongst the Rays too.

   
  
They had a great walk through tunnel as well but we couldn’t spend as long as we’d like to have, mainly for Rebecca as we had a plane to catch. Leaving the aquarium we headed back to the hotel to grab our bags and the car that had been ordered. Unfortunately the car didn’t turn up so the hotel gave us one of their stretched SUV limousines which was really cool.  We were swiftly taken to the airport and we made everything.with good time.

Long flight with William being a pest some of the time, the kids behind was a lot worse though! No sleep really, back into Heathrow and home by 9am, just in time to log on and work from home for both of us. Long day but a cracking holiday.

Our last full day in Toronto today, can’t believe it’s gone so fast! First thing is St Lawrence market,a leader covered farmers market with a huge selection of meat, fish, cheese, olives, bread etc. Really good choice and loads of lovely looking food; Li wanted to be self catering so we could buy a bucket load, but other than a bacon roll we had to leave it all there

Not sure if to try the Canadian exhibition or to look around Toronto a bit more we headed back too the hotel to swap some bits around, grab the CN Tower tickets and ask at the same time. Turns out we missed the distillery district out of the areas we’d been looking at, which although sounds great is no longer a distillery so we hadn’t been that silly!

First on the list though was the CN Tower, so a quick walk down towards the Rodgers Center once more and we head into the CN Tower with its glass floored and walled elevators, taking us quickly up to the main restaurant and viewing station. We spend a little time taking in the sights then head up to the highest viewing point I the Skypod. From here we have amazing views, particularly of the Rodgers Center with a baseball game going on which was great for some photos.

  
Leaving the CN Tower we had a good 15 minutes hike and we arrived to find the old distillery was now fancy art shops, coffee places, arts & crafts, etc. All very nice and a lovely area with cobbled streets and the old factory buildings. Even a few weddings were taking place!. Order of the day was some food and we found a lovely outside area that did oysters amongst other bits and more importantly beer. All very pleasant!

  
Rebecca and I had a good experience with the local fire station whilst waiting for Li in that they let her look around and sit in one of their massive fire trucks; really nice chap and even had stickers and a colouring book to give her, how nice is that.

  
Our evening plans were to see China town, which to be honest was slightly disappointing. Not a dragon, fancy street sign or lantern in sight, just a lot of restaurants, supermarkets and herbal medicine places. Still dinner was a massive, and cheap, pile of sushi that Li thinks was one of the best she’s had.  Rebecca was happy with the large bowl of soya beans.

A good, packed day, shattered and wanting bed!

Without the car from this point forward so having to walk everywhere but saving a fortune atin parking  least. Up quite late today and left for a great breakfast near the hotel, Rebecca had pancakes with chocolate chips and maple syrup and Li & I both had eggs and a few other bits, although Li seemed to need lobster on the side!

We left breakfast and found a large Toronto sign which was quite good with loads of fountains around it. 

  
On to the boat towards the islands and we arrived to the parks after a short journey. The view from the boat back to Toronto is really nice

  
The islands are really nice, basically a massive park area with beaches and parks along with a fairground and loads of boating things to do. We ended up spending some time on the beach and walking around with William.  

  
  
The evening was spent at a cool beer bar, drinking outside, sampling loads of local beers and eating chicken wings and tacos. Rebecca was a star and William a pain in the arse

A later start than normal but on the road by 10am. Tony found a lovely food place for brunch on the way. Rebecca of course didn’t opt for s children’s menu but had smoked salmon benedict on muffins, Tony had a meat plate and I opted for an omelette (which I don’t normally have). All were very nice and even William tucked in very nicely to my omelette & Rebecca’s smoked salmon. It seems our children have expensive taste buds.

Arrived in Niagara and it looked like a large amusement area from Brighton pier only on a larger scale.

The falls were very impressive and the water being so powerful caused a lot of water must in the air soaking us all.

We did the journey behind the falls which was impressive going behind the waterfalls. It’s so loud and there was also a walk almost to the bottom of the falls.

 We went to a restaurant opposite the falls and had a lovely antipasti platter and Rebecca tucked in to blueberry gelato.

At one point it was hard to tell whether it was raining or the water must from the falls. 

As we drove back, I attempted to give Tony a break from driving but ended up taking the wrong route and added an extra 20 minutes to our journey. We soon swapped back over and Tony took charge of driving again and back on course to our hotel.

Tony took the car back to the airport and checked out the local transportation as the next few days we are going to going around Toronto town on foot.

Li’s favorite type of day, get drunk for free and then go shopping for bargains whilst Tony does all the driving

We set off in the general direction of the shopping outlet place, near Niagara Falls, and start to taste some wine along the way. All is good but with two kids in tow, particularly William who now just wants to walk everywhere it’s a bit more difficult than we’ve had before. We’ve also spotted that they aren’t impressed with us having children in the tasting area as well which was a bit odd until one guy actually told us why, it’s because we have Rebecca a dunk of a finger into the wine which, it turns out can give the owner a prison sentence, massive fine and close down their business! It’s illegal for someone under 18 to even touch a wine bottle!

   
 For our last tasting Rebecca was happily watching the iPad and William was asleep so we left the in the car and just watched them or the window. Amazing difference! Really friendly and we had a great time with no restrictions, saying that it was the nicest place with much more relaxed staff anyway. Li was in heaven!

  
Leaving the last vineyard we took a nice detour to a maple syrup farm which Rebecca loved the tasting at! There were 4 kinds of maple syrup to taste and strongest dark one was Rebecca’s favourite (her own words)

Onto the shopping outlet place and it was massive. We spent at least 4 hours and didn’t even go in the majority of the shops. Spent far too much money on clothes, mainly for kids, but the value is good and they are now kitted out for a while. The best thing was a place that sold loads of hot and BBQ sauces though, very happy to do a lot of tasting.  

Rebecca spotted a tiny play area earlier when we arrived and was so happy to finally enjoy it after several hours of shopping. William seemed to enjoy being let loose too.

Started the day of quite early and we we’re at the local, big, shopping center before the shops even opened.  Sat and had some quick breakfast whilst Rebecca enjoyed watching a fountain fill up then empty again in a repeating cycle.  We spent a couple of hours looking around the shops and far too long finding out that you can’t get a SIM card for our wireless gadget out here. We picked up a quick lunch to have back at the hotel and then returned to do so.

Next on the list was to do some wine tasting, this want the success it could of been as two of the three places were shut and one additional place turned out just to be a warehouse; still, we had some wine and chatted with the staff of the place we did go to and then returned to the hotel and I took Rebecca swimming which she loved, particularly as it was on the 32nd floor!

 
A few snacks from street vendors was the only option for dinner and then onto the big event of the day, to watch our first baseball game. We shortly realised that we know nothing about baseball, however it wad great fun and even though William was a bit of a nightmare Li just dealt with him so Rebecca and I could try to watch the game. Rebecca got a team to from the shop but panicked about putting it on as she thought that it meant she’d have to go and play! What goes through their minds no-one can know but this want a joke to her at all. Poor little thing got so upset

  
 We never know who won as we left before the crowds did but Toronto Blue Jays were looking good right to the end and we really enjoyed the whole experience. Happy days and tired kids!

Having crashed out for a good night sleep, William had other plans of waking up at 4am for some milk and decided to throw it all up. Having finally cleaned up and woken up Rebecca in the process. We all finally managed to get back to sleep.

We were up and out the hotel by 10am and headed off to Toronto zoo. It was an enormous place and it was rather hilly in some places. 

Rebecca got to see her favourite animal the Hippos (large & pygnamy ones). Tony got to see the Polar bears and my favourite was of course the giant panda bears.

   
    
    
 We saw a lot of animals including the Canadian Moose (elk), grizzly bears, giraffes, meerkats, cougar, tigers, otters, hyena, Lynx, cloud leopard, tamarins, spider monkeys and a lot more.

  
The highlight was seeing the polar bears swim and being fed. 

Having spent nearly 8 hours at the zoo, we headed back to our hotel and found it was taped off the surrounding area. It turns out the tall spike on top of our hotel (Trump Tower) was the cause of it. No ideal and it took us a while to get back and driving the wrong way down a one way street was the only option

We finished our evening off by having a late dinner at a nice micro brewery restaurant which did a great white sangria.

Our day started pretty early and, due to Duncan’s wedding the night before, not only in a campsite on the south coast but also a head that didn’t want to be up at 6am.  We made the airport in good time and grabbed some food in one of the restaurants to sort things out which seemed to work a little.  Flight wasn’t too bad, Rebecca was great as she normally is but William was a bit of a pain although no where near add bad as other babies on the flight. He was good enough, and bad enough, that the flight attendants wandered off with him for a while at one point and Li immediately went to sleep!

Arriving in Toronto and all the bags were easily collected then we were given an upgrade to our car, so now have a big Jeep for the holiday. Really nice to be honest and loads of room. Satnav on and we’re shortly arriving at our very fancy hotel, Trump Tower, in central Toronto. Got to admit, it towas lovely  be greeted so nicely and with valet parking, although the £25 per day parking isn’t so pleasing!

Into the amazing room and then we kept getting disturbed with free stuff, first water then chocolates followed by Ice for the bar then a bowl of fruit! Headed out for some dinner and had a great burger and pulled pork not far from the hotel; crashed for the night as soon as we could on our return