TL;DR - anyone have any experience of heading to Madaba for an overnight layover?

I've booked MAD-AMM-BKK-HND for next year, and to get the sale price had to have 24+ hour stopovers. On the way back, I opted to add an extra night, so I'm planning to have a couple of days in Amman. (My other half has forbidden me from going to Petra without her, and she doesn't have the holiday for my crazy routing)

On the way out, I've got a ~28 hour stopover. I'll arrive (schedule-changes permitting....) at around 11pm, and leave at 3am. Based on the feedback here, I wasn't planning to use the airport hotel. There's a bunch of decent looking, pretty cheap hotels in Madaba, so I was thinking of booking 2 night there. (2 nights so I can stay in the hotel until it's time to go back to the airport). Looks to be about a 30 minute drive to Madaba, and there's some interesting things to see in Madaba, assuming I'm not stuck working in the hotel... Obviously would mean also paying for 2 taxi trips, and the visa

Thoughts / comments / ideas / suggestions on heading to Madaba for the layover?