Black Forest trip

We went on our first little road trip this past weekend to the Black Forest in Germany. The Swaymans (another Steelcase ex-pat family from GR) invited us and we thought this would be a good intro to exploring outside of Strasbourg. It is a good thing we went with other people because we found out that when we crossed the bridge into Germany, our GPS stopped working - not ideal for traveling around Europe when your GPS only works in France!

I drove on the way there because Ken had a work call and it is illegal to drive and talk on the phone. It's a good thing I don't drive often because I would have a huge problem with this! I did get to drive on the Autobahn for the first time, although it seemed pretty much like 196 to me. Ken had to tell me that I was driving on it.

We left on Friday afternoon and stopped at a little park called Tannenmuehle. It would have been nicer if it was a little warmer and a little less muddy, but the kids liked seeing the animals and running around.

Ava and Ella

Beckett loves swinging!

On Saturday, we drove out to Hohenzollern Castle. We got off to a little bit of a late start (the Moms fault) and didn't plan for meals as well as we should have, but we made some memories! The girls loved the castle, but the boys were not impressed. We were going to go on a tour of the castle, but forgot to ask what language it was going to be in. We ended up having to go on the Dutch tour because the English one wasn't for another couple of hours. It ended up being 30 minutes of torture because the girls lost interest after 2 minutes and we couldn't keep the boys quiet no matter how many Cheerios we fed them. When we finally left, we thought we could get lunch at the bottom of the hill, but it was closed. We typed in "restaurant" into the GPS and found a closed Country Club. We ended up finding a mall with a bar that agreed to make us pizzas. We were so hungry at that point, we didn't care!

It's a bummer getting a timeout in a castle!

Happy boy!

On Sunday, we went to the Rhine Falls in Switzerland. It was a shorter trip than the castle and we planned the day much better. No major meltdowns = a successful trip!

Keith lost a bet to Ken!

Ella thought the water looked so inviting, she would try to climb in. Ken caught her in time!

Beckett loved the view!

The hike up to lunch.

Family restaurant that we had lunch at - it was a great meal!

The boys were getting tired of being in their strollers.

He loves his paci!

We left on Monday morning to drive back to Strasbourg. On our way we found a ski hill that we could do some sledding at. The hill was almost completely ice and was difficult to walk up, especially dragging a kid and sled with you.  Beckett wasn't feeling well on Monday but we made him do it once. Ava loved going down, but wasn't a huge fan of hiking back up. Ken and I loved it - maybe that was because our only other sledding "experiences" were at Pando or Eldridge Park! We are going to hopefully make it back next winter!