Before departing half-way around the world to Israel with a 5 and 7 year old on tow, one of my biggest concern was how the kids would handle the jet lag.  I had visions of angry exhausted children angrily bawling their eyes out as they were dragged from place to place in a sleepy stupor.

The reality has been quite the opposite – though it brings its own challenges.  Somehow my kids have concluded that, although it is 1:00am in Israel, that barely makes it dinner time back home and so they should be allowed free roam of the house to play as they see fit.  My perfectly logic retort to them that they would have no energy to enjoy our daytime outings, has not only fallen on deaf ears but been proven implausibly wrong.  This morning, at 8:00am the kids had eaten a chipper breakfast and were singing camp songs in the car as we drove the short distance from our home in Modiin to nearby Latrun.

Our first stop at Latrun was a visit to the Israeli Army Armored Corps memorial.  This former Jordanian police station and military base was captured by Israel and now houses a wide array of Israeli tanks from 1948 relics all the way to the most modern 2010 version of Israel’s marquee Merkava battle tank.  Honestly, although I myself was very interested in visiting the site, I had predicted the kids would last approximately fifteen minutes before the 35c heat sent them packing.

Wrong again.

The girls viewed the massive site as the world’s largest playground and spent nearly two hours climbing each and every tank in the impressive collection before we had to drag them away for lunch.

Our afternoon was spent at nearby Mini Israel — a 15 acre recreation of major sites and cities across Israel all at 1/25th scale.  We posed in front of miniature office buildings, watched tiny people pray at a miniature Kotel, and laughed at the miniature Knesset (Parliament) parking lot which had been cleverly filled with tiny Lamborghinis and Ferraris as a sideways nod to some of the ‘perks’ that can come with politics.

Leaving Mini Israel, it was clear the adults were wiped out, yet somehow the kids continue to draw on hidden energy reserves.

Click here for a slideshow of our pictures.