Wednesday, June 29: Frankfurt

This morning we woke up to a lovely, sunny, warm, summer day! The first sunny day of our trip!! David, Ben, and I decided to take a run around the local area. I wish I would have brought the camera, but it would have been hard to run with. It was a great run, through lovely parks, along several rivers, where we saw blue herons, swans, and gorgeous German gardens. We stopped at a private outdoor swimming pool, where David and Almut are members and David and Ben took a swim!

David had this photo of the pool and sent it to me!

 Then we continued our run. We did not know exactly how far we ran, but I imagine it was at least 4 miles or so, a good long run! We walked the last little stretch back to the apartment.
Almut brushed out Bela's hair, which had been put up in braids yesterday and it is so long! He likes to call it his lion's mane.

After getting showered and ready, we all took a long walk (again along a very scenic path along a little creek) all the way to a huge shopping mall, where we did some more shopping!

Sami took his nap while we walked, but Bela was full of energy and spunk. He seems to be a daredevil like his daddy and wanted to climb on lots of railings, walk on the other side of the fence or on top of the walls! Of course, Ben seems to have a bit of that in him, too!

At the mall, we did buy a few things. Also the boys got to ride a little train, and another little riding toy (a horse-drawn carriage), meet a large teddy bear, and eat ice cream.

 

After shopping, we still had to walk back, and it had been a long day of walking. Bela ran out of steam and Daryl carried him on his shoulder for a little while!

 

After we got home to David's place, he decided to grill out on the balcony. We ate some yummy Würstchen and salad. Sami is potty training, which is why he is half naked! :)

TuesdayJune 28: To Frankfurt- Almut, David, Bela, and Sami!

Today, Ben and I took a quick run in the morning before breakfast (or brunch as we should probably call it, as it has been usually around noon!). Then we packed up and left Overhetfeld to head towards Frankfurt, about 3 hours away.

Along the way, Daryl enjoyed driving on the German highway (aka Autobahn), His maximum speed was around 180 km/h (112  mph), but still there were plenty of drivers who wanted to go much faster, so he had to use the left lane cautiously!

The drive was pretty easy and somewhat scenic. There are always wind turbines, cute German villages with church steeples and castles to see on the way.

The boys also enjoyed eating a snack mix we bought at Aldi called "Knabberbox" with different compartments of snacks like pretzels and crackers. One section had alphabet pretzels in it, so Ben decided to find his name!

 

When we arrived in Frankfurt, it was really fun to see Almut, Bela and Sami. Theboys are so cute! Bela helped make carrot salad and Sami was excited about his rubber gecko and lots of other toys. Ben and Alex enjoyed playing with them.
Almut cooked a delicious kohlrabi soup and we had a nice supper. Soon after, David arrived home from work, which was earlier than we expected. What a nice surprise!





Almut put the boys to bed around 7 pm, and since it was still early, we decided to walk down to the Höchst castle on the Main shore.

It is a really nice area, with a beautiful old "Schlossgarten" inside of the huge outer city wall.

After walking through the garden you come up some steps to the market square and it is as if you stepped back in time to the medieval times! Really beautiful little village houses and restaurants. We decided to stay there for some German drinks! ;) What a nice evening!

Monday, June 27: Hariksee and Roermond

This morning we got going a little bit earlier and managed to go to the Hariksee during a break between the rains. First we saw a lot of ducks including a cute family of 8 ducklings.

We rented a "Tretboot" (pedal boat) and even though it only had 4 seats, they let the 5 of us go in it together. It was a fun ride!

 Ben is becoming the king of selfies! He took these without a selfie stick!

After our boat ride, we saw some lovely swans, too.

Next we went to eat lunch at the Dalmatia Grill, which was one of our favorite restaurants. The son of the family, Marin, runs the place now. He was there and recognized me immediately. It was nice to see him again. The Croatian food is lovely and delicious.

Later we drove out to Roermond, Netherlands for some shopping at the Designer Outlet mall there. It was a nice place, but we did not find anything we really wanted.

 We also walked around the Roermond Altstadt (old town), but it was pretty dead. Partly it was rainy, partly it was Monday (a day of for many stores), partly it was after 5 or 6 pm, which is closing time. Still, it was nice to see the familiar places where I used to shop so often!

We also stopped for a traditional dutch snack of Pommes (fries) in a cone shaped paper bag with lots of mayo! Daryl also ate a Frikadelle (sausage), or as we prefer to call it, a "fricken della". :)

Sunday, June 26: Bike ride and Uschi!

We have been informed that it is an unusually rainy summer this year here in Germany. So far, our experience confirms this trend. It has been very wet and cold. Every time it seems to be clearing up, it invariably rains again about an hour later!
Anyway, Sunday morning we all slept in really late (still adjusting plus we were up late after the burst pipe crisis back home). After brunch, we decided to take a bike ride. My dad had bought enough bikes for all of us at a used bike auction and fixed them up to working condition. It was not raining at the moment, so we decided to risk it.

 We rode down past the Venekotensee, a really nice path along the Schwalm river.

On our way back, it started to rain. First it was just light sprinkling, but then it got harder and pretty soon it was really pouring and there was thunder and lightning. Fortunately we were able to stop at a restaurant (a tennis club) just before it got really bad. The timing was perfect; we arrived just when the Ireland vs. France soccer game was starting. We had some drinks and some of us had a piece of cake. Soon after, the rain stopped and we were able to ride home.





After changing into dry clothes were were invited to my old high school friend Uschi's house for the afternoon and to watch the evening soccer game (Germany vs. Slovakia).

We had such a nice time catching up with her. Her 3 kids are Paul (almost 18), Pia (3 days older than Alex, 16), and Franziska (11). We drank coffee, ate more cake, drank champagne, watched the game, then later ate a lovely soup and pasta salad for dinner (at half time). The game was successful (3:0 win), but more importantly, seeing Uschi again was fantastic!

Daryl, Uschi, Pia, Jost, Franziska

Pia, Paul's girlfriend, Paul, Daryl, Uschi, Alex, and Ben

After we ate, Jost called us outdoors to see the lovely double rainbow over the rooftops. It reminded me that there is hope and all the many difficult situations we are all facing, God will help work them out!