aaron.anica.emily.isabel.claire

Christmas 2016 Bernkastel-Kues Christmas morning Our Christmas was a little different this year, or I guess a lot different because of being in a different country and far away from the family and friends we love. We celebrated about a week and a half early because Emily went to spend Christmas with her other family and Aaron had to work on Christmas. Emily left the day after the girls' last day of school, so when they came home from school we opened presents from each other and then by popular vote spent the rest of the night eating pizza and bowling at the bowling alley on base. The next day we woke up early to deliver Em to the airport. We were able to hit a couple of Christmas Markets in the beginning weeks of December with her and then we did a couple after she left. We thought it was kind of fun how each Christmas Market has their own mug that you can collect, so the collecting motivated Aaron a little more to hit multiple markets rather than to just stay ho...

Heidelberg Christmas Market One of the things we are loving this time of year is the Christmas Markets that are going on all over the place. The towns that have the markets each have their own traditions and festivities that are associated with them. One thing they all have is Gluhwein which is kind of like wassail with alcohol. There is also an alcohol-free version called "kinder-gluhwein" or "kinderpunsch." We looked up a recipe and it has grape juice, citrus and spices. SOOOO yummy! Loading up on goodies Other delicious foods are crepes, waffles, trdelnik (which is a czech pastry, where they take dough and wrap it around a really thick dowel, often has cinnamon and sugar on the outside) candied nuts, roasted chestnuts, gingerbread cookies, and of course bratwursts and beer, among lots of other AMAZING food. St. Wendel Christmas Market Our first Christmas market we went to was in a small village called St. Wendel and on the opening day they had a p...

I just wanted to do a post about some of the things we've noticed that are different. Bathrooms Most bathrooms have a variation of this to flush the toilet, which at the beginning of our arrival frequently initiated a conversation between Claire and I that went something like this: Claire: Mom, which one, the big one or the small one? Me: Did you go pee or poo? Claire: Just pee Me: And how much toilet paper did you use?? Claire: Uh??? Apparently having two options to flush the toilet really complicated the process. Public restrooms can be challenging at times, especially with small children. One thing we've noticed on our road trips is that the Rest Stops on the sides of the road are different than ours. In many places they consist of an area where you can pull off, a garbage can, maybe a picnic table or two and some trees or bushes. It is not uncommon to see men pulled over in these spots relieving themselves. In fact, Aaron and I laughed one day when we were dri...

July 1-3 Eltz Castle The weekend before our stuff arrived we were getting antsy waiting and decided to do some exploring. We loaded up and headed to see our first castle - Eltz. We might have gone about this all wrong because Rick Steve's had a lot of hype about the tour of Eltz saying it's the best in Germany, so we'll see if the other castle tours pale in comparison.  We had a bit of a walk from the parking lot, but the scenery was beautiful and after driving through the winding roads in the countryside for a couple of hours, we enjoyed the chance to stretch our legs out. I lost count of how many other castle ruins we saw a long the way, may have to go back and do some exploring. All in all it was pretty cool. The tour showed a few of the rooms which were decorated with original furniture and I appreciated Rick Steve's input from the Germany guidebook so I knew of some things to look for that they don't mention in the tour. Walkway to Eltz "Mir...

June 6-July 11 Dad and girls on the plane to Germany We left the east coast in the late evening on Sunday and arrived in Germany on Monday afternoon. Although long, the flight went fairly well, other than the 2 hours we sat on the plane before take off. The girls did great and were able to sleep through most of it. After arriving we had some briefings to sit through which must not have been very memorable because they've already been tagged for the discard pile in the folds of my memory along with other stuff from that first week that got lost with the lingering jet lag I experienced. Playing in the fountain in Weilerbach Fountain near the ice cream shop We were picked up from the airport by an awesome family who had signed up to sponsor us and help us adjust for our first couple of weeks. I've heard of a spectrum of experiences when it comes to sponsors, but I have to say we lucked out and got some top notch ones. Our sponsor, Andy, is also a nurse at the hosp...