The National Aquarium in Baltimore is FUN! It's not cheap, at $21.95 for adults and $14.95 for children 3 to 11, and it takes a good 45 minutes to get there, and longer coming home in traffic, but it's closer than Atlanta and it's a great, great day trip. I haven't been there on a weekend. I suspect it may be a little less pleasant.
The Aquarium is organized in a spiral, like the Guggenheim,
so there's no running around and deciding where to go. You stroll where the building takes you, gazing into colorful tanks, large and small, at colorful fish, large and small, and snakes and sharks and turtles and, in the rainforest, monkeys and birds and spiders.
When you first walk in, there's a huge open pool with small sharks and sting rays and a three-legged turtle. We found divers swimming in the tank at feeding time, I think it was around 2:00. 
Then there's another enclosed tank with more, larger sharks that you can watch swimming around pretty fast. Then you ascend to the smaller creatures, and it becomes a pretty relaxing walk by the rest of the tanks, up four floors to the Upland Tropical Rain Forest on the fifth. The rain forest in a nice way to end, emerging out of the water into steamy foliage. Then the walk back down is a zig-zag of ramps through the dark of those enclosed shark tanks.
Note 1: No strollers allowed. Note 2: Be sure to go to the Marine Mammal Pavilion. We missed it entirely, not realizing there was a bridge to it from the main building.
Outside there are also plenty of things to do. There's a submarine you can tour (also not cheap), and shuttle boats that you can ride around the harbor for either 20- or 45-minute round-trip cruises, making stops at various points, a street performer or two, and a few junky places to eat. Lot parking is ample, though you may have to walk a few blocks—fine in the warm weather, a little unpleasant in the cooler months.
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