The cold front has arrived and the kids finish school on Friday 27 June. If you’re a Surrey Hills parent staring down two and a half weeks of 10-degree mornings and dark afternoons by 5pm, you already know the problem: the usual parks-and-a-kick-about routine stops working somewhere around day three. These are the ideas that actually hold up through the Victorian school holidays (27 June – 12 July 2026) — a mix of free local options, honest city day trips and the kind of warm indoor fallback that saves you when it rains all morning.
1. Check Boroondara’s free school-holiday program first
Before you book anything else, get onto the Boroondara Council events page or Eventbrite and look at the library and community centre school-holiday sessions. Craft, coding, storytime, Lego builds — they run across the holiday period and they fill fast, often within days of opening. Cost: free. Age range: 4–12 broadly, with sessions split by age group. Book the moment you see them listed, not the week before.
2. Warm up at a local cafe with a proper hot chocolate
Surrey Hills has genuinely good cafes within walking distance of most streets. On a grey mid-morning when you need somewhere to sit with the kids before the next activity, a warm cafe with good hot chocolate is not a small thing — it is a plan. The suburb’s cafe strip is walkable, unhurried and suited to exactly this kind of slow winter morning. Check our full cafe guide for Surrey Hills for places that have space and aren’t frantic on weekday mornings.
3. Firelight Festival, Docklands (3–5 July, FREE)
This is the city-wide highlight of the holiday period. The Firelight Festival runs on Harbour Esplanade at Docklands from 3 to 5 July, with free light and water shows at 6.30pm and 8.30pm each night. Food trucks, fire pits, and a genuinely impressive scale — it reads as a proper night out rather than a filler event. Surrey Hills is roughly 8–10 km from Docklands; you can drive or catch the tram into the city and walk across. Go on a Thursday or Friday to avoid the weekend crush. Dress for wind off the water — it is cold on the harbour at night.
4. Ice skating at O’Brien Icehouse, Docklands
While you’re heading into Docklands for Firelight, Icehouse makes sense as a daytime anchor. There is a dedicated under-8s area and skate aids for hire, which makes this workable even for children who have never been on ice. The ice sessions are ticketed, so check the Icehouse website for session times and book ahead during the holiday peak. Pair it with Firelight in the evening for a full Docklands day.
5. NGV International for a marquee wet-weather day
The NGV Winter Masterpieces exhibition for 2026 is Cartier, running from 12 June through to 4 October at NGV International on St Kilda Rd. It is ticketed and the content suits older kids and teenagers who can engage with jewellery, design history and craftsmanship. The permanent collection galleries are free and work well for younger children — the ground-floor Great Hall and the kids’ spaces hold attention without requiring a timed ticket. NGV International is about 9 km from Surrey Hills; tram or a short drive. Rainy Tuesdays are your friend here — school-holiday weekends get busy by mid-morning.
6. Queen Victoria Winter Night Market (Wednesdays, FREE entry)
Running every Wednesday from 3 June through to 26 August, 5–10pm, the Queen Vic Winter Night Market is free to enter. Street food stalls, fire pits and an outdoor atmosphere that is surprisingly bearable when you’re eating hot food and moving. It works for children who can manage the crowd and the late-ish start — primary-school age and up, realistically. The city is straightforward from Surrey Hills; park in the CBD or tram in via the city loop.
7. Your nearest heated indoor pool
Boroondara Aquatics runs heated indoor pools that are open through the school holidays. A two-hour swim session with the kids burns the morning, costs less than most alternatives and requires zero preparation beyond bathers and a towel. Check the Boroondara leisure centres for holiday programs and family swim times — some sessions include activities beyond lap swimming.
8. Council or YMCA vacation care
If you are working through any part of the holidays, Boroondara’s YMCA vacation care runs 8am–6pm across the break. Book early — places fill before the holidays start. This is worth knowing about even if you only need it for a handful of days.
9. A snow day-trip to Lake Mountain
This takes honest planning, so read it clearly before you commit. Lake Mountain near Marysville is around 2 to 2.5 hours each way from Surrey Hills. The snow-play season runs from roughly 6 June to 6 September (snow permitting). There is a snow-play area and a toboggan run — tobogganing costs around $33 for ages 6 and up. You are looking at a full day: leave early, expect traffic on the return, pack lunch, waterproof layers and a full change of clothes for the kids. On a clear winter day with good snow cover it is genuinely memorable. Check the Lake Mountain resort website for road conditions and snow reports before you leave — the road can be affected by weather.
10. Indoor play or trampoline park on a rainy day
You will have at least one day during the fortnight where the weather is bad and you need somewhere that will run the kids flat without requiring you to be outside. Indoor play centres and trampoline parks within a short drive of Surrey Hills serve exactly this purpose. Socks required, socks always forgotten — note it down now. These are worth having pre-researched rather than Googling in desperation at 9am on a wet Wednesday.
11. Balwyn Community Centre Reserve for a dry-weather afternoon
When you do get a clear winter afternoon — and Surrey Hills does get them, cold but bright — Balwyn Community Centre Reserve is close, open and free. Running around in cold air for an hour before an early dinner is still one of the more effective child-management strategies available. Layer the kids, bring a thermos, and call it time outdoors.
Planning note
The one thing that trips Surrey Hills families up every year is leaving the free council and library sessions too late. They open weeks before the holidays and they close out fast. Set a reminder now to check Boroondara’s events listings as soon as they go live. Everything else on this list — Firelight, Icehouse, the NGV — can be booked closer to the time, but the local free sessions cannot.
For more on what Surrey Hills has on year-round, see our Family Guide to Surrey Hills and the Eat and Drink section for cafe options across the suburb.