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!)