The Draisine

Spring sprung here about a month ago officially when the cherry trees were in full bloom and the tulips and daffodils (AKA Osterglocken which translates literally as Easter Bells) were dazzling our eyes.  This is our little cherry tree that isn't quite old enough to actually produce any cherries.

What better way to celebrate the weather than the Draisine?  The Draisine is an abandoned one way train track that you can rent bike carts on to ride through the beautiful countryside.  It is located only 30 minutes from our house and we had never done it.  I was a little nervous about whether or not the kids would be strong enough to do it, and, to be totally honest, if I was in good enough shape to pedal that much weight.  Although there are bigger ones, the only ones available were the four person bikes, so we needed to get two.  Two people pedal and two people ride on the bench.  I was also not sure if Bobby would be okay sitting on the bench without sliding off or something.  I decided that he would have to have me or one of the girls sitting with him.  It turned out that some of our friends came along with us which made it even more fun.

The kids LOVED it and we had such a wonderful day!  We had three carts altogether and the boys wanted to be together on one cart, but they didn't make it the whole way.  At the end we had to spread them out to finish the track.  

Drew was too short to reach the pedals so he was a passenger the entire time.  

At road intersections, two people had to hop out and lift the gates on either end while the others drove the carts through.  The kids thought this was super fun, of course.

You are allowed to stop whenever you want to and I was very curious how it would work if people came up behind you and wanted to go faster than you were going or wanted to keep going when you were stopped for a picnic, etc.  Turns out there is a plan for this, but you need some strong men for it.  You have to lift your carts off the track on one of the shoulder places.  We, obviously, had to move three carts off whenever this happened, but I think we only did it 3 times during the whole "3 hour tour."  Once we stopped for our picnic, and twice we let people pass us.  The boys were slow.  :) 

At the end of the track, you have to buy bus tickets to take you back to your car.  We had ice cream at the restaurant outside before getting back in our van.  The whole day was just so memorable and relaxing, despite the exercise involved (and the extremely uncomfortable bike seats.)