Our trip to New York was quite different than our usual trips. We spent a large amount of time on tour buses and waiting in lines. It’s hard to be at someone else pace. 
We only got to spend 30-35 minutes on Liberty Island. We felt very rushed to explore quickly. 
Back on the ferry heading back to Battery Park to get back on another tour bus. 
Oh, we did manage to get our Junior Ranger badges. 
We got to SEE Ellis Island but not get off since our tour didn’t include this as a stop. 
We had lunch with the only nature we could find in downtown before we went to the 9/11 Museum. 
The 9/11 Memorial and Museum was very interesting. I really didn’t know a lot about the event but I really have a good understanding of what happened and how the world changed from this event. 
We opted for a docent lead tour and it was very informative and filled in a lot of information that I needed to understand. 
It was amazing seeing the severity of the damage in the photos but to see the twisted and melted metals was very impactful. 
We explored all around the two ground level memorial pools. 
The new train station had a very unique roof that opens on the memorial date of 9.11 and allows a beam of light to shone outward. 
We needed to decompress and managed to find some more green space and watched the pigeons wander about. I even found one that was tagged. 