San Francisco

Such a nice city, so many things to see and do!  We started out by driving over the Golden Gate bridge.  We stayed at a hotel near Fisherman's Wharf which meant we could walk to many of the things on our check list.  We bought the citypass which included free transportation (cable car, bus, etc) and tickets to the Exploratorium, aquarium, California Academy of Science and a boat cruise around the bay.  With only two and half days to explore the city we crammed a lot of fun into a little bit of time.  

Checking out the sealions at Pier 39

The aquarium was busy but still enjoyable.  Jillian always loves a touch tidepool area where she could pet seastars, anenome and a shark.  Leah dipped her finger into the water many times before working up the courage to touch the starfish and anenome (not a chance of her going near that shark!). 

Alcatraz

We didn't get a chance to visit the island, but our boat cruise around the bay went by the island so we could see all the buildings.

heading under the Golden Gate bridge

We only spent a short time in the Exploratorium as it was crazy busy.  A favourite for the kids was the fog bridge (even though I reminded the kids we see lots of fog...we live in Seattle!). 

Lombard street...crookedest street in the world.  We walked all the way up and down.  This was near the end of our trip and Kyle was pretty much done with being away from home so there was some grumbling.  I had to laugh when Kyle's biggest complaint in life was that we gave him an Xbox for Christmas and then took him away on a family trip to San Francisco the next day so he couldnt play pn it.  Sorry, no sympathy here buddy!

One night we visited Ghiradelli Square for dessert.  It.was.delicious!

And the best part is they give out free chocolate samples (it was peppermint bark chocolates which Leah doesn't like, so I took one for the team and ate her samples too).

It was a great place to spend a few days as a family.  I'm so glad we got a chance to see so many iconic San Francisco landmarks.  One of the biggest perks to living on the west coast is getting to explore some new places as a family!