School break

His Highness the Father Amir of Kuwait Sheikh Saad Al-Abdullah Al-Salem Al-Sabah passed away yesterday. We are now in 3 days of mourning so the kids didn't have school today and won't have it again tomorrow. They'll return back to school on Sunday. I thought I'd take advantage of having them home and get some shopping done. Many stores were closed but the one I'd planned on going to was open. Everyone else was also taking advantage of having the day off because it was packed.
It was an interesting day. Clara's friend had called us Tuesday night saying she didn't think we had school because of this but we weren't sure. I tried to get some information off the internet. I found out he died but I had no idea who he was and I couldn't find any information about schools being closed. I got the kids up this morning (Todd is in London this week) and took them to school. When we left we were pretty sure there would be no school as there was no traffic. What usually takes 40 minutes to get to the school (then another 25 to get back home) took only about 20 minutes round trip. There were a few others at the school who also didn't know about the cancellation.
The media here is under government control so most of the radio stations were playing the same thing. It was people singing and speaking in Arabic in honor of his passing. The kids were able to pick out a couple of words. He was laid to rest at 9:30 am today. Evidently they don't waste any time in burying those who've passed on. I don't know if what we heard on the radio was some sort of broadcast of a memorial service or what but it went on all day long.
Batman is taking advantage of the break and invited a friend over for a sleepover. It's not often they get to have sleepovers as our weekends are Friday/Saturday and Friday is our Sabbath day. The rest already had some playdates scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. We'll probably go swimming or something in the morning tomorrow.