Hamburg - Police Museum

I was a bit surprised the kids wanted to go to the police museum. But then I learned that the main attraction was the helicopter and police vehicle simulators so it wasn't surprising for the ones that are vehicle fanatics! 

This was one of the more gruesome items in the museum!  

The displays, especially in the Identification area, were very interactive and great for kids of all ages! 

The museum is within the police training compound so we saw this tank, lots of police cars and also a recruit class warming up for some type of physical training. I got a humorous video of the kids following along with the exercises! :-) 

 

Hamburg - Hagenbeck Zoo

After stopping in Saskatoon for the annual SARscene conference, my next stop (after several flight delays and changes) was Hamburg Germany. My niece, Nicole, her husband Austen, and their three kids, Kore, Sigrid and Soren (ages 10, 7 and 3) are living there for a few months while Austen works at the Medical School of Hamburg so it was a great excuse to travel there. 

The first day we took it pretty easy while I recovered from jet lag. The kids had run out of reading material so we went to the main library downtown. The highlight for me was the statue out front and the book return system which was all automated, scanning the book and then moving them along a conveyor belt and dropping them in the correct bin. 

The next day we went to the Hagenbeck Zoo. It is one of the largest zoos I've ever been to (and Andrew and I have been to A LOT of zoos!). I was impressed that the kids lasted almost five hours!  

Despite the huge giraffe statue at the entrance to the park, there were no giraffes at the zoo. But so many other interesting animals! 

The playground had lots of great features. 

Hearing the tiger roaring was a big highlight of the day for the kids. 

Soren made his thoughts of an end-of-the-day photo very clear! LOL!