On Monday I found a play area inside the mall where the grocery store is and you can drop off your kids here to play while you shop or you can even leave the mall area. Unfortunatley Jacob was too old for it, but I put the other 2 in there. It was a very nice, clean area where they had some climby area and then play area, and crafts. The lady working didn't speak any English but she did speak Portuguese so that helped refresh my Portuguese. So grocery shopping was a little more pleasant with 2 less little people!
When we came home I saw that I had left the garage door open. So at least I know that it is a pretty safe area that no one came and took anything since we were gone for about 1 1/2 hours. (Knock on wood) For now I am parking on the street/sidewalk in front of the house, so I just didn't even notice it when I drove away.
The mail comes here by late morning and I have a mail box on the sidwalk which is a lot closer to my front door then at home. So the mailman has a yellow shirt on and just walks down the street pushing a little cart and delivers the mail. Today I receieved something from UPS I had ordered. I had heard if you weren't home that they might not leave your package, so I waited until I saw him and he missed our house so I went outside to see if he was coming back. Sure enough he did and I got my package and I asked him if I wasn't home if he would leave it and he said yes. So either he will leave it next time or he had no idea of what I was talking about. The UPS man didn't have the typical brown uniform on, so maybe they don't have to wear it here. And the truck is a lot smaller than at home.
We didn't take any vacations this summer since we were moving and knew there would be a lot of trips we wanted to take in Europe. So Wednesday was our first trip and we got up and drove to Legoland in Germany. It ended up taking us a little longer then planned, about 5 hours. We got mixed up only twice with the exits, so it would take a few miles to turn around. As I had mentioned before in Germany you have to take many different highways to get where you are going. So we are constantley getting on and off of different roads or highways to go the direction we want to go. Here when you go to get off on an exit there would be 2 ramps on the right to choose from and it was difficult at times on the GPS to tell which ramp to take. And the ramps are just labeled by the towns around there not by the direction- east, etc. So by the end we just had to go really slow close to the ramps so the GPS could catch up and we would get the right ramp. Note to self- next time bring a map so we can tell which direction we are going!
Most of the 5 hours we didn't see much but trees, forests and fields. We drove through a handful of tunnels through the mountains and up and down. We stopped at one rest stop along the road and you have to pay 0.70 euros to use the bathroom. Most rest stops also have a Burger King, but I packed a lunch for all of us so we didn't try it out. I haven't seen any Burger Kings in Luxembourg. The kids did well on the drive. We took the car Jason is using and it has 7 seats so the kids aren't all sitting next to each other because that doesn't go well for long periods of time. We also had bought DVD players that get attached to the back of the driver and passenger headrests. So Amber could watch her own movie, Jacob watched a movie and Sean was in the 3rd row so he could watch either one.
As I say at home it isn't summer but construction season,on the roads especially. Well it is the same here. There was a lot of road construction, but I think the difference was it wasn't redoing the roads it was building or expanding to make new roads here. The German word for highway is the Autobahn. And most of the time there is no speed limit except for places where you need to slow down, tunnels, etc. There is a white circle with lines through it which means no limit. And the far left lane is for passing only. So once you pass someone you have to move back over to the right lane because some people go so fast you will get hit if you stay in the left lane. We think one guy passed us going around 150 miles per hour! Yikes!
So we decided to drop off our stuff at the hotel and then go over to Legoland. It is a little harder here to get a hotel for 5 people. There weren't many options. So our hotel was about 10 min. away and we got 2 adjoining rooms. Most places won't let 5 people stay in one room.
Just a picture from the website.We got to Legoland around 2pm and there wasn't anyone even coming in. We really thought it was going to be crowded and it wasn't. We got about 3/4 way thought the park this day. It was only about a 5 min. wait on the rides which was a good thing because it was very hot here maybe high 80's (which felt good coming from Luxembourg) and Jason and I don't smell pretty when we are hot and sweaty but there was a bad BO smell in line. Jason said he didn't think all people use deorantant over here. It isn't a huge park, but big enough for 2 days. They had a lot of water play areas. And if the kids here didn't have suits with them we saw alot of them playing in their underwear and then since they would be wet they would just walk around the park barefoot and in their underwear. I even saw 2 women walking around in their bras. In the center of the park was a bunch of famous towns in Germany or Europe all made out of Legos- amazing!
This is a city of Legos-Netherlands
This is Switzerland made of Legos.
The famous castle made out of Legos which we went and saw later. Then of course they had a whole star wars section they have made out of Legos as well. The boys loved that! We stayed until 8pm when it closed. We were exhausted-long day!
The next day we went back when it opened at 10am. I was a little leary about bringing food in the day before and then I saw that they don't even check your bag and I saw one stroller that had a bottle of wine in it and of course they serve beer in the park. So this day I packed our lunch to bring in. So the park was a little bit more crowded but the wait for rides was only at 10-15 minutes. So we finished seeing everything we didn't get to the day before and then went back and did what the kids wanted to do again. The roller coasters Amber was able to go on she loved and would scream and put both hands in the air! We stayed until a little after 4pm. That night we had rented European Vacation on the Ipad and watched it. We had to fast forward a lot of parts since it is PG-13, but the main points of it are funny. A family traveling through Europe and all the mistakes they make or things that go wrong. One of my favorite parts is when they are in London and get on the round abouts and can't get off. He keeps saying "Look kids, Big Ben" and they drive around the round about all night. So that just cracks me up because the round abouts are all over here instead of stop lights. So it is difficult to get over when you want to get off so I just stay in the right lane when I am going around so I can off, but I don't think I am suppose to be- don't tell!
On Friday we were planning on going home, but at the last minute decided to extend our trip one more day. So we got up and drove 1.5 hours and only missed one exit this time- we are getting better at this! We drove to a town close to Fussen and parked the car and bought tickets to go see 2 castles. The 1st one was the Hohenschwangau Castle- this was a 10 min. hike up a mountain and then we waited for our tour in English.
It had beautiful views of a lake and the mountains around and the landscape. It was a smaller castle and we saw the Queen's floor (dressing room, bedroom, reading room, writing room and living room). Then on the next floor up was the King's room same layout as the Queen. And in his bedroom he had a secret door that led down to the Queen's room and she had the key to open it if she wanted to let him in or not (:
The children's part of the castle was across the courtyard (:(:
Well the King died at a young age and he only had 2 children, both sons. So the oldest was 18 1/2 and he became King. So King Ludwig II took over and after awhile he decided he wanted a bigger castle. So across the town and up on another mountain top was the ruins of another castle and he thought this would be a good spot for his castle- Neuschwanstein Castle. So he had a telscope in his bedroom of this other castle, Hohnenschwangau, and was watching the construction. So for us to see this castle we had to walk back down the mountain, go across the street and hike up the next mountain to get to it. They have 2 buses and some horse drawn carriages that go up there but the lines were so long we thought we might miss our tour. So we hiked 25 minutes up the mountain. It was a little difficult with the kids. The boys did ok. Sean was the commentary for the horses and their pottying on the road and then when the horse would step in the poop from the previous horse, well you can imagine Sean's loud comments! There was a little hut about 3/4 the way up that was selling stuff so we got everyone some ice cream to keep them walking (well everyone but Amber who was either being carried by me or on Jason's shoulders).
So this Neuschwanstein Castle is one of the most famous castles in the world. Walt Disney based some of his castles off of this one.
What makes this castle so famous is that it was being built by the King and they built it for 17 years (the other castle they were living in across the mountain took 4 years). They finished the outside and about 1/2 the inside and that is when the King under mysterious conditions died in a lake in Munich. Since he never married, or had any children and his younger brother was declared mentally insane at the age of 24, no one took over the castle. It was started in the late 1800's so fairly new for a castle. The King only lived in part of it for a short time while it was still under construction. So the tour was of the 1st floor which was the servants floor and the 3rd floor which was the King's courters. Since it was a newer castle it had plumbing and we saw the King's bedroom had a sink in it and then a door with his toilet in it. It was a big green leather chair and you lift a lid in the middle to sit down and go potty- ha! The passage from his bedroom to his den was built like a cave since he liked caves. Then the 4th floor he had built a big room for the opera to perform there. Two of the turrets on the sides of the castle are staircases. It is a lot of stairs to get up to these floors and very winding.
Then we hiked back down the mountain to the car and drove 1.5 hours to Munick. Once there we went to a famous square-Marienplatz.
All around the square are just shops and cafes so no cars can drive here. And there is a huge clock tower- and 3 times a day when the clock strikes 11, 12 and 5pm it chimes 2 songs with bells and then these figures come to life and dance around inside the clock. It is called a Glockenspiel and is the famous clock of the New City Hall. The 1st time the clock chimed was to mark the end of the plague in 1517. So we got there at 4:45 just in time to see the 5pm show. After that we walked about 10 min. to a famous beer garden- Hofbrauhaus.
It is a huge place. It has outside seating and inside as well. They have big picnic tables and you sit and share the table with people. They had a traditional band playing with the guys dressed in the traditional shorts/overall outfits. We ordered 3 traditional dishes and shared them, a chicken dish, sausage dish and noodles. Jason was the only one who ordered a beer. But he said it was good. And we had to try the apple studel for dessert of course and everyone liked that. Then we drove 1 1/2 hours back to the hotel we had been staying at. It was about as much as we could squeeze in a day!
Sat. we got up and drove home. But we stopped at an Ikea since in Luxembourg they don't have any, but there are a ton in Germany. So we picked up a few things we needed for the house since they have such good prices. Then Sat. night we tried out a babysitter and the kids liked her. She is a junior at their school and is from the UK. So we went down to the Grund and went to a Pub that was along the river and sat outside.
As soon as I can find a USB cord I can download my pictures.
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