When I am looking after the boys, I am always looking for things to do. I make sure I prepare for these adventures with plenty of fruit, sandwiches, crackers and drinks. My boys are big fruititarians. The first time I was stuck somewhere with a hungry 1 year old, I decided to never do that again.

Go to the Melbourne Zoo

My boys love this – always something different to see – I like to mix it up and spend quality time with a couple of different animals in a different part of the zoo each time – Liams favourite at the moment is the tigers. We have just recently been spending some time with the the Great Apes too. They are a lot of fun to watch. With an annual family pass this makes return visits to the zoo very economical, and a lot less stressful. I don’t feel like we need to see everything to get the value for our pass.

Melbourne Museum

We always start with the forest exhibit here. They love it. It is clearly a sign that we need to do more camping… After the forest, my boys love the interactive kids area here. It is extremely popular with stay at home mums and gets very busy on school holidays. Its a really good, safe and interesting place for the kids to explore while you meet your friends for coffee. And is interesting for adults too – the kids area is fabulous, but so are some of the other areas – especially the bugs – with its live ant and cockroach farms – what more could kids possibly want – great for rainy days too – and the 96 tram stops right out front.

Tram ride to St Kilda

My boys love riding the tram so heading out to st kilda for the day is pretty fun. once you get past the tourist coffee shops and head to the boulevard, the beach, the sand the open spaces for the kids to run and feel the wind in their face. Also the st kilda luna park is pretty exciting for them – there are rides for all age groups – its free to go in – you just pay for the rides you want – from the old fashioned merry-go-round to the pretty hairy rickety old roller coaster with views over the sea.

A bike ride along the Merri Creek trail

This is such a beautiful path, and is really a lot of fun to ride along. We ride with a bike trailer, which is occasionally a bit awkward as there are some quite narrow spots. But, there are some great things to see for boys. Our favourite spot is Coburg Lake, which is this beautiful little valley nestled on one side by a cliff and the lake, and on the other by a steep wooded slope. They really love playing with the ducks and running away from the geese (closely supervised, I am really not sure about those geese…) And there is a great little playground too.

Swimming at the pool

Coming into summer, we have just started occasionally swimming at the pool in nice weather, and we have also signed up for weekly swimming lessons. I am quite excited about that. When we are at the pool, Liam loves to walk around and do splashing and show me how he does his favourite thing. Henry mostly likes me to hold him and to help him float along (but not on his back!). After an hour of being in the pool, they are both exhausted and ready for lunch.

If you have any other things that they like to do around your city with your kids, I would love to hear about them in the comments.