Germany!

We spent the first part of our summer in Germany and was it ever a wonderful trip!  So amazing!  Plus, with Germany's world cup win, we couldn't have picked a better time! :)  It was such an adventure for the kids.  Benjamin had been there before, but was too young at the time to remember, so essentially, it was all of their first time.  Everything from the bullet trains, to the unique architectural styles, to the food, to the German language all around them, was a new experience.  It was so wonderful to share it all with them.  I always feel so happy and at home in Germany.  From the moment I step off the plane and start hearing German, I feel like I could stay forever.  Were it not for Kelly waiting back at home, I almost certainly would.

We stayed with my mom in my Grandma's house. That house has been in our family for 400 years. That makes it older than the USA. It was very important to me that my kids also have memories of this house that has meant so much to me and our family. Being an army kid, no house has been my house for very long, but this house has been the one stable location through all those years.  And while we were there, many family members came and talked about what the house meant to them.  How they remembered spending vacations there or living there.  It really is a special place. I tried to take a lot of photos of them in and around it, so they could one day hold up two pictures and say, "Look, here's me in the kitchen, and look, here's my great-great-great-grandpa in the same kitchen."  I think that's really cool.

Here they're playing Sleeping Queens in an upstairs bedroom.  On the wall is a picture of my great grandma Anna Elisabeth who lived in the house many years ago.  I think she was smiling to see the kids in her home.

We found an old radio in the attic and it still worked great.  The kids improvised instruments and had a blast playing band.

One of my favorite things to do in Germany is walk in the woods and neighborhoods. My grandma and I used to take walks together every day when I'd visit her.  I made sure my kids and I did a lot of that. My grandma's house is in a small village about 10 miles outside the main city, so we had access to the city when we wanted it, but otherwise we had a wonderful time out in nature.

The view from the hill above the village:

On a walk on the road leading out of the village, with our German walking canes.  Most of them belonged to my Onkel Hans.  My grandfather died before I was born and so Hans became my grandfather. He was wonderful to me and he always had his cane along whenever we'd go walking.  On this day Benjamin carried his favorite cane to the cemetery where he is buried and I got to show Benjamin his grave and tell him about the man who carried that stick.  It was a very special moment for me and I think Benjamin felt it too.

There is a large farm on this road with lots of horses.  Christian could have spent all day there.  He became quite a little horse whisperer.  The horses would come right up to him and they would stare at each other for the longest time.  It was adorable.

We had a lot of family come and visit while we were there.  Bella especially liked my cousin Matthias.  He was so sweet to her and she latched right on.  It was so cute to see my kids getting to know their extended family better.

Matthias's wife, Heike, taught the kids how to make clover crowns during their walk and Christian thought it was amazing.  He wore his proudly for several days until it got too wilted.

Matthias and Heike have a son that's Benjamin's age.  Reynaldo and Benjamin got along great too.  It was him that got Benjamin learning German.  The two of them managed to communicate quite well and it was amazing to see Benjamin's language improvements after only a couple days with his cousin.  Here we found a herd of goats on the mountaintop.  It was so Heidi, I had to take a picture.

My mom was taking golfing lessons while we were there, so whenever she was golfing, we hung out at the lake by the golf course.  The kids got to watch the waterskiiers.  Only they don't waterski with a boat like in the states.  They have a set up of cables and pulleys in a circle above the lake and a skiier holds onto a handle attached to the cables and gets pulled around the lake from above.  Stinks to be you if you fall in on the opposite side of the lake from the loading area.  It's a long swim back.

We found a quieter area of the lake and had fun swimming a while ourselves.  Only downside was that the water was COLD!  All the water is cold in Germany.  Maybe it's what makes Germans such hearty, strong people - the ice cold water they all swim in.

We visited 3 different swimming pools in addition to the lakes.  The kids had a blast checking them all out and trying the various slides and toys and diving boards they all had....and their frigid cold water. They have beautiful outside pools in Germany, surrounded by grassy knolls, picnic spots, and playgrounds.  It was one of our favorite things to do there. If you ask Benjamin how he liked Germany, one of the first things he'll tell you was that he did somersaults off the 3m high dive.  It was a proud moment for him.  None of our pools around here have high dives, so he thought it was pretty awesome....but at least our pools are warm!

We also celebrated Benjamin's 8th birthday while we were there.  On the morning of his birthday we had waffles with strawberries with whipped cream and a German strawberry cake.

Then we went hiking on the Doernberg - the hill by the village.  Up on the top of the hill are large rock formations called the Helfensteine.  They are super fun to climb on. Benjamin could have spent all day there jumping and climbing around on them.

They also have Segelflieger up there.  Those are gliders - single seat airplanes without an engine that simply glide on the wind after being launched into the air.

 They are hooked up to a rope which is wound up really, really fast by a truck, like the one below, thereby pulling the plane along the ground until it catches the wind and goes up.

It is really fun to watch and so I wanted to show it to Benjamin.  We didn't see too many being launched but we saw quite a few in the air and several land.  Of course we also had ice cream up there and then we went swimming...again.  He had a great birthday.

Other incidentals:  We played a lot of soccer while we were there.  You can't go to Germany during the world cup and not play soccer.  Playing on a full-sized field gives you real appreciation for how much those guys run during a game!  Those fields are big!

The cherries were in season while we were there and boy did we take advantage.  Everywhere we went wild cherry trees were growing and we left no fence, swing, or tree unscaled.  Those cherries were good!

No trip to Germany is complete without at least a few trips to castles.  We went to this one with my mom, but quickly discovered that old castles with lots of breakable things and expensive admissions costs just aren't a good idea with kids, so we mostly stayed outside and enjoyed the view from out there.  We did go into the ruins of an old castle and that was fun and perfect for kids, but unfortunately my camera battery died as we got there, so I have to wait for my friend who took us to send me her pictures of the day.

I also forgot to take a picture of the church in my grandma's village.  We attended the Lutheran church each Sunday that we were there.  It was built in the 1100s and it so beautiful inside.  I attended there every Sunday with my grandma whenever I'd visit and I wanted to share that with my kids.  The pastor knew exactly who we were and greeted us personally in his sermon has his "guests from America."  Bella fell in love with the organ music and the songs we sung.  She insisted we sing them every evening together while we were there and looked forward to Sundays when we'd get to sing them again.  There is always a really good feeling in that church and it made me happy to see that my kids felt it too.

On one of our walks in the woods we found a little restaurant, deep in the woods.  Inside the place was full of antlers on the walls and taxidermy animals near the tables.  Benjamin's favorite was the boar next to ours.  Here he's giving him his own antlers.  Nothing says "eat up" like a dead boar's snout poking you in the back.

For his birthday, Benjamin wanted a pedometer to keep track of all those walks in the woods.  Here he's proudly showing me when he reached 20,000 steps so far for that day. We were visiting a dear friend in another town and we made the most of the time we had there by walking all over the place.  By the end of the day it was nearly 21,000 steps.  It was a wonderful visit full of sight seeing, walks in the woods, swimming (of course), and time just enjoying each other's company.  I'm so thankful for her hospitality in opening up her home to us for those days.

The kids loved riding the trains between the various cities.  The large train stations and the high-speed trains zooming past the red-roofed villages nestled in the green hills was such an adventure.  On one trip we sat in a car with a group of German 6th graders heading back from a school trip.  They were sitting with their home-room teacher and their English teacher and when they overheard my kids speaking English, they perked right up.  We became the center of attention for this group of about 20 kids.  They and their English teacher stood in a circle around our seats and we talked the whole 2 hours.  We had a great time together.  I helped them practice their English, they asked us questions about America and shared their snacks with my kids, and we sang songs together in both languages.  It made the trip fly by.

The most famous landmark in Kassel, the city nearest to my Grandma's house, is the statue of Herkules.  He looks down upon the city from way up high and is visible for miles around.  The kids wanted to go and climb the steps up to him.  Bella tried counting and determined "there are a billion!"  Not quite, but it kind of felt like it.  We had a blast, though.

What it looks like when the water is on.  They turn on the water 2 times a week during the summer and let it run from the top all the way down, but the crowds are way too much during those times, so we avoided it.  Pay for parking and fight crowds?  We've got water at home. :)

I worried I'd be carrying this little guy before we got to the top, but he was a trooper.  He just kept on going and going without complaint.

We visited my grandma's grave a few times while we were there.  It's weird but I like cemeteries. I like the peacefulness of them, the beauty, and the history.  I like reading the headstones and imagining how the people lived in those different times.  I discovered on this trip that my kids like them too.  We spent a long, long time in the cemetery walking among the graves, talking about those who I knew, looking at the different styles of headstones and decorations.  They also appreciated the quiet and peacefulness that was there.  They were very respectful and well behaved and it was a sweet experience with them there.  I miss my grandma but visiting the grave wasn't so sad because I know that she isn't really in that graveyard.  She's somewhere much better and it's just a matter of time before we can take walks together again.

Well, that was our trip in a nutshell.  My main goal for this trip was to share my culture, heritage, and memories with my children in a real, tangible way. I wanted them to meet their extended family rather than just see pictures and finally have memories to go with the names. I wanted them to know why my German half is so important to me and I wanted them to rejoice in their German heritage too. I think in a small way, I reached that goal.  They each have their own fun memories of the trip, have come to love many members of our family, and each gained a stronger desire to speak German and learn more about that part of them.  It was a great trip and hopefully only the first in a long tradition of vacations to Germany.