I wish I lived nearer Winterthur...

...because then we would be able to go to the fabulous technorama more often.  Its 300km away, so possibly doable in a very long day but not ideal.  
So on Thursday evening directly after yoga we set off in the van.  We got almost to Zurich before stopping for the night at a service stop.  Unfortunately, for me in particular, we were extremely close to the motorway and Pip woke up very frequently so I wasn't as refreshed as I could've been. 

After breakfast of croissants and coffee or hot chocolate (depending on your age) we drove on to the Technorama.  Every exhibit is hands on which means that you really can spend the entire day exploring the 3 floors (and the slightly out of place lame model train display in the basement) and still not do everything.  They also a few demonstrations of which we participated in two. 
The first was to do with forces and Dr John and Chris Evans went in a spinning seating area where they rolled balls to one another and tried to walk in a straight line amongst other things.  I was quite glad I was on Pip minding duty as spinning things really aren't my thing.  I get dizzy on a playground roundabout! 

The second demonstration was about gases, involving balloons, helium, carbon dioxide, oxygen and lots of bangs.  It was in German but they handed out brief explanations in English so I was able to let Dr John know what was going on.  

We had lunch in the cafeteria there, and left just before it closed.  As I say, I wish it was closer so we could go more often.  We then drove towards Zurich and stayed the night in another service station.  The next day we stopped off on our way to Zurich zoo as I was buying some fabric remnants from someone.  I got 2 large bags of fabric from her, and she very kindly gave me a craft book too.  Its in German, but has lots of pictures!  I find it so difficult to find reasonably priced fabric here in small prices.  I only make small things, bibs, blankets etc so don't need metres.  

Anyway, we made our way to the zoo.  It was raining so we started in the rainforest exhibit.  We saw lots of wonderful birds flying around our heads and occasionally there would be terrifying shrieks from the monkeys up in the roof.  Its a great set up in there as they do a little tour around it and take you on little paths and across rope bridges that
 you wouldn't otherwise be able to do.  On our tour we were joined by a French speaking family so the guide was speaking to us in English with Chris Evans translating a few words she didn't know from German and then I was translating it into French.  A great linguistic
 workout for me! 

After lunch looking into the rainforest we ventured outside.  Not so much fun due to the weather but we saw everything we wanted to, including spending a lot of time with the gorillas.  That evening we drove along the motorway a bit further, stopping at another service station before continuing home the next day.  A lovely weekend and leaving on Thursday evening meant that we were home by lunchtime on Sunday and it was completely relaxed with no rushing about.  And we got to spend another weekend in the camper which is always a bonus.  Roll on the time when we go away for another couple of months like we did 3 years ago.