The Kids Eat Free Day Out Challenge, With Subway | AD

I love the weekends, and going for a fun day out somewhere with my family. Sometimes it’s so easy to get caught up in all the housework that needs doing, and the reading and homework for school, and before you know it, it’s Sunday evening again and we haven’t done anything special.

So when we do make the effort to have a day out, I always really enjoy it and think we should do it a lot more often. Sometimes it can feel like you have to spend quite a bit of money to have a day out that kids will enjoy, and it can put a bit of pressure on when you don’t have a lot spare for the fun stuff.

So I really enjoyed the challenge of planning a free day out for Ava, with Subway. Until the 17th April you can get a free Kids Meal Pak when you buy any six-inch meal deal, which makes it the perfect place to take your little ones to over the Easter holidays, especially as part of a free day out for the kids! We can end up spending loads over the school holidays trying to keep them entertained, but there’s really so much around us that we can do for free, whilst still having a brilliant day out – and a free lunch helps even more!

We actually ended up having a free weekend out rather than just a day, and Ava had a great time. On the Saturday she took part in a free Easter hunt at Smyths that she really enjoyed, and which distracted her from asking for more new toys constantly whilst there. And then she also did some rock climbing (outside in the rain!) with Ultimate Outdoors also for free. There’s so much to do without spending a penny when you actually look for them, particularly over the school holidays, and it’s really inspired me to make more effort to have days out without it costing us a lot.

On Easter Sunday we went for an early lunch at our local Subway which we all really enjoyed. Ava ate all of her sandwich, and loved choosing the fillings herself, and she was very excited to get a cookie with her Kids Pak (there is also a healthier option!). The SEA LIFE Kids’ Pak also comes with 1 of 4 different activities and was great at keeping her entertained, whilst we carried on eating our lunch. There’s also a voucher for 50% off tickets for a family of four to SEA LIFE centres across the UK and Ireland included, which is brill.

There’s so much choice at Subway, so it’s perfect for fussy kids (or adults!) and we’ll definitely be going again during these holidays – it’s nice to be able to pop into a Subway during a day out and just pay for lunch for me.

After a nice lunch we went to Wollaton Park where there is so much to do for free, that’s both fun for kids and adults, and we had a great long afternoon there, despite it being freezing cold!

I had made a little scavenger hunt for Ava to do whilst we were there, so she started on that whilst we wandered up to the beautiful hall. There are deer that live at Wollaton Park, but they usually stick to the fields to the side, but today they decided to venture across the main part of the gardens and head straight for us! It was very cool seeing them up close in the wild, although they did want to get a bit too close to us for our liking! I may have got slightly panicky as they kept following us with their giant antlers heading our way!

After our narrow escape from death by antlers we strolled up to the top of the hill and went inside Wollaton hall. It’s a beautiful Elizabethan mansion built in 1588, and there are lots of different rooms to visit inside, and the building houses the Natural History Museum. It is also where the Batman movie ‘The Dark Night’ was filmed! There is loads to look at and we spent a while looking at all the preserved animals and ticking a couple more things off our list. There are always different things happening at Wollaton Hall and there is usually a room with some bits for kids to have fun with, and there is also an Easter Egg Trail happening at the moment (which we didn’t do).

Ava really enjoyed doing the Scavenger hunt that I put together; it really gave her something to focus on and get excited about it. I’ve never done one before, and I’m pretty crap at doing anything like that to be honest, but the ‘free’ aspect of the day really encouraged me to think about how I could make it more interactive for her, and I was so pleased that she enjoyed it. We’ll definitely do some more when we go out for walks by the river whilst she’s off. It’s a great thing to do for free, even if the weather’s miserable.

After that we stepped back outside and Ava had a run about along the paths to the side of the house for a little while, whilst ticking more off her list of things to find.

It was getting chillier by then so we headed back down the hill to go to the park in the grounds. It’s a really good park with lots for all ages, and we all played there for a bit, until it was time to go home, much to Ava’s dismay. She found one of the last things on her Scavenger hunt list (a feather) on the way back to the car, and she was pretty pleased with herself for finding all but one of them (berries – although she insisted some deer poo was berries!).

She was really worn out after a long day of fun, and I was very happy to have spent nothing (except for car parking) despite having a full and lovely day out together, getting lots of fresh air and a tasty lunch.

Wollaton Park was a great place to do that as there’s so much to do there, but the whole challenge has really inspired me to think about other places we can go this half term, without spending a penny! Especially when we can get a free lunch at Subway for our kids at the moment! Have a look here to find your nearest Subway: http://www.subway.com/en-gb/findastore (GB only), and get a free lunch for your kids when you buy any six-inch meal deal up until the 17th April.

Have a look at this great post from The Mini Malpi about a fun yearly event that also takes place at Wollaton Hall – Science in the Park.

I hope you all have a lovely Easter holiday, and let me know if you take advantage of the great offer at Subway!

This is a collaborative post with Subway.