The hardest part of the trip was finding enough warm-weather clothes for all of us here in Singapore. But we found enough and with eight checked bags full, we managed to stay pretty warm. Santa was nice enough to come visit us here in Singapore a bit early, so we celebrated on December 13th with lots of Legos and tons of toys and then headed off to Germany at 2am on the 15th. It was a very long flight with an interesting layover in Doha, Qatar but the kids did great the whole time.
We were pretty exhausted when we arrived so we laid low for the first night. The next day we bundled up and headed right for some of the great museums in Berlin. We took the kids to the amazing Natural History Museum which has the largest brachiosaurus skeleton in the world! The kids loved wandering around seeing all the different rocks and animals. Great time! Later that day we went to the Wall Museum which was built across the street from a section of the wall that is still standing; great chance to see it from that perspective.
The next day we visited KaDeWe which is a huge, fancy department store that had a beautiful Christmas display. Next we headed to the Pergamon Museum which was one of the most amazing museums ever. It holds several enormous, full sized buildings that were excavated and brought in pieces over from places like Babylon and Egypt. Wow!!
We ended the day with a great visit to a local Christmas Market. It was cold and beautiful and the market was filled with all sorts of local arts and crafts and delicious food! We had our first taste of gluhwein, too - warm red wine. Yum!
The next morning we headed off on a road trip to Austria! We headed south out of Berlin for a stopover in Munich for the night. We were all excited to jump on the Autobahn and get on our speedy way. That idea lasted about an hour or so until the Autobahn started to get a bit crowded. And a bit slow. We found out later that we were stuck in a horrendous traffic jam all because of a stalled bus! The trip took several hours more than we anticipated so we didn't get to see much of Munich that night. The next morning we got up and headed for the Deutsches Museum, which has everything from boats to airplanes to mining tunnels. It went on forever, great museum! Afterwards we took a speedy walk through a local market (which was right under THE glockenspiel in Marienplatz, the center of Munich!), then grabbed some pizza and headed off to Austria.
We arrived in Austria and were amazed by the beauty. The alps are gorgeous and just go on forever. We stayed in a great hotel called Hotel Theresa which is owned by one family and almost everyone that works there is a family member. It was such a beautiful and quaint hotel and the amenities were perfect. We had our own special table for all meals and the food was fabulous! They even had a wonderful spa and it was only minutes from the ski slopes. We spent the first day just exploring the beautful little town of Zillertal and then we all went on a fun (and scary) toboggan ride down the mountain! What an adventure!
The next day we headed out to ski. We got all of our gear rented and brought the kids to their ski school for a half-day session. The kids did great and were ready to hit the slopes after their class. Both Ethan and Jonah had so much fun and loved skiing and riding up on the t-bar!
On Tuesday Matt and Rob skied together while Tara and I took the kids to see the Swarovski Museum, which was so cool! The whole museum is full of beautiful sculptures made almost entirely out of Swarovski crystals. Wow! Then we headed to Innsbruck and wandered around the town and through a Christmas Market. Innsbruck was gorgeous, it literally looked like a little town straight out of a fairy tale. So much fun.
The next morning Tara and I headed out for a lovely morning hike up to a church that sits on the side of the mountain above our hotel. A great hike! Then Matt, Ethan, and I went back up to ski. Ethan did great, we took him up several chair lifts to the highest point we could get and he skied down like a champ! He was fearless and absolutely loved it!
A warm spell arrived and a lot of the snow melted and we got some rain, but it was still beautiful. The next few days were spent relaxing and skiing and we also went on a fun dairy tour showing us how they make all of their delicious Austrian cheese!After a wonderful week in Austria, we headed back to Berlin to spend a few days with Matt's parents who met us there.
We had four great days to spend in Berlin so we took advantage and visited some amazing places! We saw the Antiquities Museum (which had so much history that it was overwhelming to try and take it all in), the Jewish Memorial (which was the most unbeleivable holocaust exhibit I have ever seen both inside and outside), the Sony Center (where we took the kids to see Where the Wild Things Are), the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church (a beautiful old church that remains partly blown apart from the war), the Checkpoint Charlie Museum, the Stasi Museum (shows all the different ways the stasi spied on German citizens - shocking), the Brandenburg Gate, another Christmas Market, and we even went indoor rock climbing! We also spent a lovely evening having a very authentic German dinner of duck, lots of cabbage, and knudels! Yum!
As always, the time flew by way too fast and it was already time to go. We had an amazing time and I feel like we all learned so much about Germany, about Berlin, and all of its history. I loved every minute of it and we are so thankful to Rob and Tara for having us and showing us their beautiful city. I just can't say enough about what a great time we had!
