Activities for 8- and 6-year-old boys?

LifeAtMyOwnPace

My sister will be coming to visit after I have my baby, and she'll be bringing her brood with her - three boys ages 8, 6 and 18 months. I'm not concerned about entertaining the youngest one, as he might just end up staying back at the house with us, but we'll need to send off her husband with the two older boys so they don't go stir crazy. The time frame is the first week in April.

Can you recommend any activities or local blogs with activities for these kids? Low- or no-cost would be ideal. A few notes - my brother-in-law will probably be too overwhelmed to drive into D.C., so activities in the NoVa suburbs will be best. The kids like diverse activities - they love sports but are also very bright so would be entertained by educational stuff as well.

I'm a FTM and I don't have any fellow mom friends yet, so this is new territory for me!

ch ch ch chia

You could go to one of those bounce house places.... Pump it Up, BounceU, Jump Works...  usually the entrance fee is around $10 per kid.

Also, there's the Smithsonian Udvar Hazy Air & Space museum.  That's out near Dulles.

Could you convince you BIL to metro in to DC?  That opens up a lot of free museum options!

LifeAtMyOwnPace

ch ch ch chia:

Could you convince you BIL to metro in to DC?  That opens up a lot of free museum options!

Ugh I KNOW. And they live in a NJ suburb of NYC, so you'd think public transportation wouldn't seem so difficult to grasp, but they're just so stressed out by the idea. And I live in Vienna, so they could take the orange line right to the Smithsonian .... alas. They're entrenched in their suburban life, and a 4-day visit to see me isn't going to change that. So I'm thinking maybe the Reston Zoo? A movie in Tyson's? Definitely the Udvar Hazy, as you suggested ... I think they'd love it.

umdbride

I'm not in the NoVa area, but how about some local parks?

Sometimes just someplace new with new stuff to climb on could be enough for at least a couple of hours of amusement.  You could even buy a cheap kite or two, or remote control helicopters to give them something more to do. 

 

WinesNotWhines

Do you think they'd be more likely to go into DC if you buy them each Metro passes in advance (enough to cover each of them for the week), print out copies of the Metro map, and give them detailed directions on how to get in/out of the stations and where to go? I did that for my parents when they visited and they were totally fine. I think the hardest part for them was figuring out how to buy fare cards and knowing how much money to put on them, so it was much easier if I did that part for them.

I can see how it would be a little overwhelming to just send them on their way if they don't know what to do, but maybe if you hold their hand (figuratively) a little? It would be such a shame for kids that age to come to DC and not see any of the cool stuff! And that's cherry blossom season!

If that's really not an option at all, I second the rec for the Dulles Air & Space museum. If they like outdoorsy things, you could send them to Great Falls, which is off the beltway near the VA/MD border.