The weather the first two days was pretty rainy, so we just hung out at the pool. The kids were in heaven. Adeline is pretty much swimming on her own and Norah has no fear and is a little fish. At night after swimming, we just showered and got ready in the nice locker rooms before we headed back to our cabins.
Sunday morning we enjoyed attending church in Austria. Matt was in Heaven because he served the majority of his LDS mission in that ward. Afterwards the kids had their lunch on the curb outside the church with a gorgeous backdrop :)
Luckily, we did have some good weather on the trip as well.
We ended up hiking up Partnach Gorge. It was BEAUTIFUL. A little sketchy bringing little kids, but it was completely fine as long as each kid was holding an adults hand. The hike was supposed to be an hour total (up and back). Of course when we got to the top of the Gorge, the boys decided on a different route back to the car. After hiking back and forth up switchbacks, UP the mountain, our 1 hour hike turned into a 4(?) hour hike. Good news is that it was extremely pretty. We ended up at a little resort on the mountain and found a gondola to take down to the car so we didn't have to walk a couple more hours :) Adeline was AMAZING and didn't complain once. This girl is such an energizer bunny. She wanted to climb another mountain!! I don't know how she does it. At one point in our hike Chase turned to Adeline and said, "Come on Adeline, let's pretend like we are getting married". So cute.
We also visited Lake Eibsee. Matt wanted to show Abe a rope swing that he had found in past visits to that lake. After witnessing them doing it, I can say that I have no desire to try it. It was pretty scary... and dangerous I might add! On top of it being scary, it was also pretty cold outside and the water was freezing. The kids did not care about the temperatures and fully enjoyed playing in the lake. I only wished that it hadn't been so cloudy so we would have had an amazing view of the alps!
Abe
Matt
On the way back home we stopped randomly off the side of the road somewhere in Austria and took some pictures of the kids. This area totally reminds me of Switzerland. I LOVE it.
There were gorgeous views on the first part of our car ride home....
We ended up sitting in about 2 hours of traffic and that was completely miserable. I feel like all Germany is under construction right now and it sucks. I ended up sitting in the back, playing with the kids and getting Meika out and feeding her. After all, we were completely stopped.
This picture makes me laugh because Norah was obsessed with this rabbit for several weeks and treated it like her baby
Eventually we made it to our via point which was Ramstein AFB. We wanted to indulge and get some Macaroni Grill for dinner. It was awesome. I felt like I was in America. Free water, ice, refills on drinks, etc. The base is crazy too. As soon as you drive on, you really feel like you are in America. I couldn't believe how ginormous the BX was. I felt like I was in Target. I was even able to buy Meika's soothie binkies there! I only got to shop for about 20 minutes, but enjoyed every second of it. I do have to admit though that it made me happy we are stationed at Geilenkirchen where we are more immersed in the culture.
I miss Garmisch and am sure we will be visiting again :)
