January 3rd - Blackhawks and Bye bye Germany

On our last full day in Germany, we took some time to visit my brother at work at the US Army Base in Ansbach.  Rachel had to take Sophie into her preschool, and Grandma and JJ went along, leaving Sequoia, Pheonix and I to pack our things and just hang about.

I was sitting on the stairs at the front waiting for them to come back when Uma Lina, Andrew and Rachel's landlord and neighbour across the courtyard came to say good morning.  Well, Uma (Grandma) Lina does not speak English at all, and the kids and I really didn't get much further than guten tag in the German language department.

I bought 2 bottles of Uma Lina's peach schnapps (comes complete with a pic of said lady on the bottle's label) and before I realised what was happening, we were being ushered inside her house for some morning tea while we were waiting.

Uma Lina's house

Peach Schnapps complete with photo on the bottle

The kids were offered juice and some homemade cookies and Uma Lina insisted I join her for a small glass of local wine.

Well, about 20 minutes later, and a few turns with the google translate app on my phone, I heard Rachel's car and we gave our thanks and made our way out....

Actually, I stumbled my way out (after a 2nd social glass of wine), and I am sure this was all before 10.30 in the morning!!!!

The kids had a ball climbing all over the Blackhawk!

We had a nice lunch in town, Sequoia had a haircut and I purchased some farht in a box before we headed home for our last night with our family...

Like all good things, our time in Germany had came to an end.  :-(  It was so great to see Andrew after such a long time, and a real pleasure to see him so happy with his family and his life.  It was hard to say goodbye to him, Rachel, Grandma, Sophie, and JJ, but they will be out to Australia for a visit in about April this year, so we won't have to wait for too long to give them all big hugs again...

December 31st & January 1st - Paris to Goetteldorf via almost the Netherlands, aka broken GPS

After a super-early breakfast, we made a quick getaway from Paris in the pre-peak hour traffic.  All off to a good start, we made it to Metz, near the Germany border in fantastic time - we even took a little side-trip in the city of Metz (the autoroute bypasses) for some lunch and to seek out a wooden chair promised to Grandma (Jan, Rachel's Mum) for Xmas....and made our way back to the highway without much problem at all...

Then things just went.....well, wrong....

Somehow, we were just outside of Mannheim and what I have worked out is that we were on the right road, but heading in the wrong direction....

Unfortunately, somehow did not realise this for about 2 hours (?????) and we were halfway to the Netherlands (just outside of Koblenz) before I realised that the turnoff we were looking for was just never going to appear!

In my own defence, I will say that the weather was dreadful and I needed all my concentration on driving on the very wet roads (sunset starts soon after about 3pm, and once it started getting dark, I could barely see the lines on the road), and I left the navigation to my passengers, the kids.  They did the best they could, but we didn't arrive in Goetteledorf until about 8.30pm and I must admit I certainly was not all cheery, ready to bring in the New Year with any sort of bang...

Queue: food, shower and bed.

However, sleep was elusive.  Those crazy Germans (I repeat, those crazy Germans) do not have even remotely the safety bans on fireworks that we have in Australia.  A couple of, I believe, rival families had a fire-cracker war....mine's bigger than yours is, na na na na na!

No sleep for you!!!!!

The fireworks show I'm sure would have rivalled Melbourne's and Sydney's, mind you, no heritage buildings caught on fire in the finale, or so I believe...

The next day was very much a recovery day.  A leisurely breakfast and lunch, followed by some band music from a local travelling orchestra in the town square, and lovely naps :-)

At 1pm on New year's Day, we were treated to some light orchestral music in the Goetteldorf town square...

Apparently this local orchestra travels around to all the local towns around ?Ansbach heralding in the new year with some little known (to me) tunes.  The conductor did step up and gave a long and heartfelt speech, but unfortunately my translation remains....'German word, german word, yah, german word...and so forth'

It was lovely to have a restful day, with much of the entertainment coming in the guise of my gorgeous neice and nephew...

Whats not to love....

JJ eating...my favourite was the mash potato mohawk!

Cousin Sequoia was always on hand at meal times! Two beautiful girls!!!!

Christmas Days

We've had a relaxing few days at the house over Christmas.  I love that it was a really simple family Christmas where it was more about being with each other than presents and the whole commerciality that seems to pervade our Christmasses.

After all our exciting busy-ness, I finally took the opportunity to enjoy a bit of down time on Christmas Eve. 

I did have to share with you something I found when I stopped into a supermarket with Andrew the other night.... a box of fahrt!!!  Gotta love those Germans!

I believe this is Jelly Crystals - farht!!!! lol

It didn't snow on Christmas morning, but I so enjoyed our time in the snow when we arrived in Goetteldorf, I didn't mind so much.

Tree after JJ and Fritz the cat had been chewing on the fruit loop chains....

Well, we are currently sitting in our hotel in Luxemborg and about to embark on our journey into Belgium and France....so we'd better get a move on.  Luxembourg is a gorgeous old city.  We went serching for an early dinner last night, but everything was closed.  We got to see some of the city though and after getting lost, we headed back to the hotel and had quite a delicious meal in the restaurant there.

Gotta go......