Last day in Northern Ireland and Ireland- Day 16

Our last day in Northern Ireland and Ireland! We had spent the night in Belfast, so this day we needed to make our way from Belfast to the airport in Dublin by about 14:00. We didn't have any specific plans for this day, so we just took our time getting to the airport.

This was driving out of Belfast. Apparently the big sphere in the road at the round-a-about was constructed in 2011 and represents "a new sun rising to celebrate a new chapter in the history of Belfast." (Wikpedia page about the sphere). The sculpture is called Rise.

I thought this bridge was cool along our way! Although I didn't know this at the time we saw it, this is Craigmore Viaduct.

This was me taking pictures as we were driving along. It's so pretty!

Grandma and I! Dad wanted a picture of a sign telling us where we were. :)

I liked this cemetery by the river. Once again I took this picture as we were driving.

We are almost to Carlingford, Ireland in this picture. We made a pit stop in the cute town of Carlingford.

Carlingford!

We walked around a bit and enjoyed the beautiful view in Carlingford!

We visited a park to let the kiddos run around and play. I love this picture of Grandma and Karey chatting with the locals at the park. :)

This is Malahide Castle but we didn't go inside. This was basically our let's go to the bathroom before we get to the airport stop. Someday when I go back to Ireland (which I totally want to) I would like to go back here. :)

On the grounds of Malahide Castle! Now off to the airport we go...

We had a pretty eventful flight back to England. There was a winter hurricane approaching and there were some strong winds and heavy rains on our plane ride back. It was a smaller plane and there was turbulence the whole flight and we were fishtailing the last half of the ride. Even as we were about to land, we were fishtailing and we were hoping that that wouldn't cause problems with the landing safely part of the trip... The flight was only 50 minutes or so but it seemed much longer with how turbulent it was.

It was weird because even though it was definitely the most turbulent flight I've been on, thus far in my life, I was oddly not that scared about it. Thankfully we made it back to England and back to Matt and Karey's house safely. :)

Gadsfield Elm Chapel and Tewkesbury Abbey next...