I'm a bit puzzled, as you drive like a granny ...

Only because of my very slow car

we seem to have crossed wires,the caliper is the part that hold the pads in,this can be removed without the carrier,the carrier is the part attatched to the hub,with the two big 17mm(iirc) bolts,this bit needs to be removed to change the disc,you can change the pads by just removing the caliper.

we are thinking the same,just my idea of caliper is different to yours i think

The caliper is the green thing I'm holding in my hand in the 4th pic. It has two parts, the inboard one containing the piston, and the outer which is fixed to the hub carrier. The outer one slides on two pins that run in bushes in the inner. If you just remove the two bolts, the whole thing slides off the disc sideways. It's properly called a "single piston floating caliper". Maybe the ones you were working on were fixed 4 pots. The Octavia one contains both pads, and they can't be removed without undoing those 2 bolts since they slide in grooves in the caliper. The inboard ones have a spring clip on the back that fits inside the piston, so have to come out forwards, which means having the caliper off the disc. Hope this helps.