Stuttgart and Legoland

May 19-22, 2014

Jason had the brilliant idea to go to Legoland.
Our last trip to Legoland in California took us about 10 hours to drive there. Legoland Deutschland is only 3 hours away from us!

We planned for 3 whole days.
Our first day Jason found a zoo in Stuttgart. About 2 hours from us, it made for a good stop.

The zoo had a lot of beautiful landscaping. Not like the 100% concrete ones that I've been to in the US.
Very green and lots of trees.
My favorite was the goat mountain which was also inhabited by monkeys! The monkeys would actually climb onto the goats and groom them. It was really cute!

There was also a cute monkey Gavin's size that was playing peek-a-boo with him in the primate house.

There was also a bontanical garden and several fountains. And throughout the park there were fun little climbing structures with ropes or beams for balancing.
It was a good time and Gavin left with a bright orange snake.

After Stuttgart we headed to our hotel in Günzburg.

Wow, it was so awesome! The hotel was quite cute and had a very large and comfy bed for Jason and I as well as a bunk bed for the kids, a small dining room and a bathroom with a very confusing shower. The best part of our hotel was the location. It was right on Marktstraße and our view of the street below was super sweet.

After getting settled we took a stroll through the town and chose from all the restaurants where to eat....we decided Chinese.
We were not disappointed. The food was yummy, the weather was lovely and because we were sitting outside our food was served over two warmers. The kids loved it (Brytons roast duck was delicious!) And after they ate they played around the fountain in the middle of the market.

After dinner we walked to the Gelato shop. Yum. I had chili chocolate ice cream. Burning hot and ice cold.

Day 1 down. It was such fun, but we were tired!

Day 2 started at the bakery down the street. After a great breakfast we hopped in the car with our Camelback's and headed to Legoland with a quick stop to buy ice for our bags (totally with it)

A few weeks before we planned our trip Gavin had a happy meal with a 50% off coupon for Legoland. So only paying 80€ for a whole day of fun was definitely a bonus!

Little did we know that going to Legoland on a Tuesday would be one of the best ideas ever. There was no one there. We parked right up front! We never had to wait in line...at all! We cruised through the park going on ride after ride nonstop.

It was a very warm day and when the water themed rides opened we headed on over and left completely soaked! One ride simply consisted of sitting on a very slow boat with squirt cannons while passersby and passengers other boats assaulted us with 500 gallons of water....freezing cold water!
Totally refreshing.

Legoland was a huge success and the kids were spent before the park closed.

Gavin was just shy of being tall enough for a few of the rides but it didn't get him down.

Both the kids are mildly obsessed with the Lego movie. So each were allowed to pick out a Lego set. As if they weren't spoiled enough, but what are vacations for?

So our 3rd day was supposed to be another day at Legoland, but having done everything there with hours to spare we decided to leave and check out of our hotel a day early.

On our last morning we went to another bakery for breakfast, and headed back to Stuttgart.

I found a fabulous park there. Kind of like a Central Park it was a very very large landscaped area with flowers and ponds and a playground. But our first stop was a giant climbing tower. 4 or 5 stories high we climbed to the top of the spiral staircase and enjoyed the view from the top. Our calves were thanking us later for this climb after 2 days of walking.

The kids enjoyed themselves at the sandy park for a while and then we headed deeper into the city to checkout a really cool market we heard about.
While it was cool, the market was literally a market. Spices, fruits, vegetables, meats, and cheeses. Pretty neat but we weren't there to buy groceries.
So we took to the cobble stone and we toured the shopping district.
These shopping streets are always very cool with lots to see...and eat.

Finally though, it was time to come home.

A day early, half priced tickets,and a very inexpensive dog sitter ($30) this vaca wasn't as expensive as we had expected, and was over-the-top fun!

Mannheim

May 3, 2014

After seeing dozens and dozens of signs advertising the Mannheim Markt we decided we really should check it out.

So, we did.

After a long drive and the fluster if finding out where to park we finally made it in.
Immediately we find ourselves surrounded by African goods, food, and music. Definitely a little confused, but super hungry we went to a good looking shack with meat on skewers and a delicious smell wafting from it.

I ordered a little bit of everything.
Well everything was ice cold despite being in what looked like warmers and all the meat being grilled just outside the shack. And it was rather costly.
Bummer. Well it was the first time we blindly tried something and regretted it.
Bleh

As we continued through the market we realized we were in the African portion of it. There was a lot more there to see. A large tent with all sort of toys and fun things as well as a candy hut and farm animal tent.
Those were the highlights. Everything else was like a trade show selling tractors, windows, kitchen appliances etc.

We bought a yummy strawberry treat and then made our way out.

Definitely not the most exciting thing we've done so far, but now we know we're not missing anything.

After the market we headed to the Technomuseum.

Now finding exactly where to park in Deutschland can be a challenge every time you leave the house. And while we thought we were in the right place, it turns out the road I took lead directly to the concrete patio at the bottom of the stairs of the museum...its hard to explain but let just say I was on the opposite side of the marble barriers that keep cars out....oops

The museum had 5 or 6 different levels. Starting at the top you make a somewhat spiral downward through all the exhibits.

Most everything was hands on...except for the things with tiny plaques in German that said do not touch...which we didn't notice until it was too late...oops again

There was a lot to do here. And it was really fun. I'll let the pictures do the talking.

After a fun day at the museum we decided to top it off with our very first trip to IKEA.

Now I don't blame anyone but I feel someone should have told me that this would be a mistake.

The cool parts were the free daycare for the kids. Which had toys, a ball pit, lots of friends, all in a very cool treehouse themed play area. The other bonus is that we were able to find a small kitchen island for the microwave. Which added more counter space, two shelves and two draws to my tiny kitchen.

Now the crappy part.

In order to get out VAT form (a system to not pay the 19% tax) filled about it was about an hour wait. That sucked. And then we headed upstairs to eat. 

Of course we tried the meatballs. Why wouldn't we?

They were pretty good.

I like my family's recipe better...just saying.

Here comes the part where someone should have warned me.

Once you go up stairs you cannot leave without walking through the entire (and I mean ENTIRE store again) its a warehouse for crying out loud. So after our day of walking through the Mannheim Market, the 5 story museum, and IKEA once already, we had to walk it all over again....the store itself is like 2 miles.

Yes, I'm whining.

It was a long day and IKEA was like torture.

I'm glad I got what I needed because I will most likely never be going back.

Overall, hooray Mannheim was fun. Next time I'm taking the train.

Wiesbaden April 19, 2014

Wiesbaden was amazing and beautiful! It was really what I had imagined Kaiserslautern to look like. K-town is nice and all but when we received orders to Germany I thought it would be all red roofs, painted shutters and cobblestone. Kaiserslautern is more industrial than I had assumed.

We began our visit by going to Kletterwald. A tight rope obstacle course high up in the trees!  I misunderstood the website when it said ages 4 and up. Gavin was only allowed to do a tiny version if the obstacle course but no adults were allowed to accompany a child on it. Gavin wasn't have fun and he and Jason ended up staying on the ground while Bryton and I climbed, balanced, and zip lined our way through the tree branches.

I had to put my purse and phone in a locker so we don't actually have any picutlres to share.

Bryton and I had a lot of fun together but lost track of time while Jason and Gavin waited for us.

After our tree exploration we went down into the city to walk through the shopping district on the cobblestone streets.
There we found a fun Lego store to play in for a while. Other stores included a 1€ shop and a fun little gift shop that sold stuffed animal head mounts (ie the unicorn in the picture).

As dinner time rolled around we walked up to an Asian diner and parked our keesters on the patio. Each seat had a small fleece blanket folded and draped across it. This was super nice as it was getting chilli sitting in the shade.
I was able to order our dinner in German and while we waited a stranger came up to us and speaking German, complimented my speaking German and how dissapointing it is that so few Americans try to learn the language.
So that was very nice.
Dinner was amazing! We all cleaned our plates and continued down the cobblestone. We found small easter baskets and then some Gelato.

After a long day of touring the city and seeing some amazing sites we headed back to our parking garage.

Ich mag wirklich die gelbe Blumen! (I really like the yellow flowers!)

So it's springtime here in Germany. And...it...is...BEAUTIFUL!
Everything is so intensely green here. Moss grows everywhere, and the forested areas are so thick you sometimes cannot see more than ten feet in.
The rolling hills come with sets of dark green grass patches offset by winding roads and more tall, dark green trees.
And right now it seems every other field is a blazing, incredibly bright and brilliant GOLD.
Albeit absolutely gorgeous, it is also incredibly distracting while driving through the countryside.

Ein neuer Spielplatz (A new playground)

I heard from a gal at church about a great park in Weilerbach. The instructions I got were "just behind the flower shop". Pretty vague but we ventured out anyways.
We found a flower shop and turned down an impossibly narrow road, and would you believe it? There was indeed a park. But that road was for residents only and so we had to find the playground's parking area.
We drove around the entire block (passing two other flower shops) and parked at the town square.
This playground was really cool.
There was a large pond, sandy play areas, slides, swings, climbing structures, and a super duper long zip line!
The kids had a lot of fun and I tried it too!
The pond was lovely. It had several ducks and one mama duck had a cute brood of incredibly fluffy ducklings!

It was pretty chili with the wind and clouds so we will have to return another day.

Dinosaur Park

On Friday the 11th, we didn't really know what we were going to do.
After running a quick errand, I did a quick search on our GPS and Caesar's Park popped up.
So a quick drive through Kaiserslautern we pulled up to the park....which was a tennis park. haha All it had was court after court. No swings, slides, or anything playground affiliated.
So, I decided we would check out the Dinosaur park.
We had passed it several times since being here but it had only just opened a few weekends ago.

After paying to park the car and then paying for admission. It was then Jason pointed out that it was going to close in an hour and a half.
We had a lot of ground to cover. The park was HUGE!!!

It did indeed have dinosaurs but it also had a wonderful landscaping with flowers, green grass, a lovely stream and pond with stepping stones and bridges.

The playground did not disappoint!
It had several very very long slides, amazing water feature toys, tree houses, musical instruments and excellent swings.

We definitely got our money's worth in the short time we were there. For only €4,25 per person we will definitely going again. maybe next time we will pack a lunch and make a day of it!

Cochem Castle

On April 5th we took a trip through RTT ( the on-base travel agency) to Cochem Castle on the Mosel River. We booked the trip about 5 weeks in advance, so we were really looking forward to going! This tour was especially for the kids and they were encouraged to dress up as knights, princesses, or thieves. Gavin has been playing Castle Crashers on the xbox lately so he wanted to be a knight, and Bryton chose to be an assassin/thief.
The morning of we got up early, backed a bag and met the coach bus at the base chapel.

We were initially a little disappointed because they had assigned seating and had put us in the seats directly behind the second door of the bus, so there weren't any seats in front of us. We were told the children could not sit in those seats and had to take the two which were behind them. So that meant that we couldn't split up 1 adult with 1 kid.
That being said the kids were great sitting behind us. They had their tablets and a few snacks which kept them occupied.

It was really nice relaxing the whole way (about 2 hours) instead of driving there. The seats were pretty comfy and the views out the window were really nice. The country side is so beautiful with dozens of vineyards and colorful fields. My favorite of which are the canola fields (where canola oil comes from). They are a bright brilliant yellow against rolling green hills and blue skies.

This little trip included a few hours in the town of Cochem to tour on our own before the castle tour.
We spent a few minutes in the Easter market and bought ourselves some fabulous crepes. One Nutella and the other a Kinder chocolate....oh so good.

Before heading out on the town the kids got their faces painted for 2 Euros each. Gavin went first and is so ticklish he just could not hold still! It was really funny and he giggled the entire time. He chose a spider web and orange spider. Bryton decided to go with a large cut in her face, complete with gaping stitched and dripping blood.

Spider faced knight

A dark assassin...

Once everyone was good and painted we headed across the Mosel river to the mustard factory!
Unfortunately we had missed the last tour by 30 minutes and the next tour was scheduled during our castle tour. Although we couldn't tour the factory we were able to taste test a dozen different mustards and jellies (which also had mustard in them....). We settled on two and bought them. They come in really awesome stone or ceramic basins and are good for two years so long as they are not refrigerated.
I somehow did not take any pictures of the mustard tastings...oh well.

Touring the city was a lot of fun. It was all cobble stone with dozens and dozens of shops, bakeries, cafes, and little street vendors. So upon seeing a bratwurst and brötchen stand we of course had to stop. We are definitely fans of brats on buns with mustard. 

Making our way up the town we stopped at a little cafe for some hydration and some relaxation. The entire town on the castle-side of the river was all uphill leading to the castle. The rest was much needed. 
And the kids we allowed to pick out some chocolates as well. It turns out that 8 out of 10 were filled with alcohol! haha I'm glad the lady behind the counter told us before!

We stopped at two more gift shops before we made our way to the castle where Gavin found an airplane, Bryton found a miniature hand crank music box which plays 'Only You', Jason found a great KEEP OUT sign for our house decor, and I made out with some awesome clown letters to spell my name!

The hike to the castle was long and steep, and of course Gavin had to pee when there was no Toilette to be found. So being in dire need I walked Gavin around the back of a closed restaurant and had him pee in the corner of a wall....ah, yes, I'm not going to miss the 'public urination' stage of raising my boy.

Before the tour started the kids had fun running around in their costumes and playing with the other children dressed as knight and princesses. 
The tour was pretty cool. We were able to go the the dungeon and torture chamber complete with skeletons and ghosts. 
Bryton took a ride in the spinning cage for women to be publicly humiliated for petty crimes. After that Jason, Bryton and I all took turns in the Pillory. It just so happened that when I was in there the rest of the tour group and guide emerged from the dungeon and I was made an example of by the tour guide! Good times...

After touring the princess's room, treasure room, and looking down into the pits, we went over to the dining hall where we were served chicken and rolls. Now we weren't given any forks or knives so we had to eat with our hands. This would have been fine but, wholly smokes the chicken was incredibly hot! Delicious, but very very very hot. 
Gavin killed half of his roll, which was about the size of his head and his entire chicken leg which was also really huge. And then, he was asleep. 
I will miss the 'falling asleep anywhere' stage of raising my kids. 

He's still so little and he was asleep so I carried my little man the whole way back down to the buses. 

The ride home was just as nice as the way there. The kids were great and it was very relaxing. I even managed to put all the pictures together.

Castle Ruins

So....several weeks ago we visited the three closest castles to us. One in Landstuhl 'Burg Nanstein' and two in Wolfstein the names of which I do not recall.

Its pretty neat to see them, and the hiking is almost always worth it!

One little thing I'd like to add. Since no one was at the castle ruins in Wolfstien I let Hurley off the leash only to see his tail disappear over the side of a castle wall....which was well over 20 feet high.

stupid dog....

He was fine but managed to give us all heart attacks!

Wir haben nach Heidelberg gefahren. (We went to Heidelberg)

We went to Heidelberg (city and castle), which was AWESOME.

It's a super old castle...(I don't know all the details) but it was massive and incredible and had an amazing view of the city, river, and mountains.
We walked up a long staircase/foot path to get to the castle from where we parked, which by itself is pretty dang cool. Everything here is mossy and green and just looks ancient and magical at the same time.
the stair steps to the castle could have been 15 or 1500 years old. who knows. They are awesome either way.
The view at the top is just breathtaking. It felt like time travel. Large squares, churches, rivers and bridges could be seen and it was just so surreal that we LIVE here! People visit here from all over the world and it took us about an hour to get there. Just ...amazing!

So the castle. It had so many carvings and was simply a beautiful piece of history and architecture.
The outer area was free but we did pay to go inside...like 10 or 15 Euro for the family. Not much and totally worth it.

The courtyard was very cool and dozens of statues were part of the castle wall.
And there were these cool picture frame things on the wall. so of course we all posed in front of them :)

Over one of the castle walls we could see cannons and Bryton thought that was pretty cool.
Then we took a peek inside the kitchen area which was well stocked with wines, meats, cheeses, cakes, coffees, and sodas (we had this apple strudel with vanilla sauce.......'Nuff Said am I right?)
Also inside were enormous....and I mean ENORMOUS! Wine barrells. So big infact that this specific part of the castle was built to house the wine barrel. Pretty danged cool.

Sadly a lot of graffiti was just about everywhere. On the walls, barrels, stairs, handrails, and on the castle and doors. Not cool People!

Next we walked through the Apotheke (Apothecary or Pharmacy) museum. It was very interesting. Lots of neat science beakers, puffer fish, small little alligators, etc.

It was a very nice day especially for late February but the castles were freezing.....soooo cold!

After our fabulous tour of the castle we took a cute little train (like a trax train) up to the "top" of the mountain for the "view" See our tickets for the inside of the castle included these train tickets and the information desk said we had to go to the top. Well, the train only goes to a hotel at the top, and another (older) train takes you the rest of the way. But the red train was either under maintenance or hadn't opened yet. So the ride up was kind of a waste. On the plus side we were able to ride the train all the way down to the town. This track I'd say, was at a 65 degree angle. If not steeper. It was a lot of fun to ride it from the top and we sat in the very front which was nearly entirely glass.
The train ride as well as the the view of the town reminded me very much of the old Willy Wonka movie.

The town was so amazing <that word I'm sure is going to get old fast. But really...truly...amazing.
The buildings are so tall, and the cobble stone streets are so narrow. Each square had a fountain or statue, and all the little shops, and restaurants were....well...AMAZING.

I loved it and I bought a cute little pull string clown at the first shop I saw.
It was all very touristy and I loved it.

We found our way to the river and followed it up to the large bridge that could be seen from the castle.
The bridge was beautiful with cobble stone on the ground, and beautiful stone walls. There were a ton of people and even some musicians with an accordion and a violin to set the mood.

I think we walked about a 9 hours (probably exaggerating ) but near the end our feet were tired.

We found our way back to the train, rode it on up and walked back to our car.

When we first arrived we stopped at a little food truck before going in the castle grounds and had some brats and pretzels. Well we were starving by now so we found a parking garage near the busier part of the city and walked for what seemed like forever before stopping at a little Italian shop.
Bryton had a slice of pizza the size of 5 slices, while the rest of us had some yummy pasta. Gavin was totally out. Jason picked him up and carried him the entire time we looked for the restaurant and that boy slept like log.  We finally woke him up to get some noodles in his belly.

It was really a great place, and we had a great time.

BTW there was a giant IKEA on the way there so I'm looking forward to that little adventure.....
*Side note, neither Jason nor I have ever been to an IKEA and my kitchen in in desperate need of some type of portable kitchen island.. (super excited!)