Our Belated 15th Wedding Anniversary

Next on the agenda while my parents were in town was our anniversary trip (15 years last June!).  I had weaned Bobby specifically with this trip in mind.  We decided to do something close to make the most of the two nights away.  So, we chose the Black Forrest, but we had to leave on a Sunday due to our packed schedule.  This meant getting a later start because we first needed to take the kids to Mass.  

The boys just happened to all match so nicely which just demanded a picture.  Genevieve kept sneaking into the pictures on various shoulders.

We stayed in a little guest house in Baiersbronn.

You can't see it in the picture very well, but that white line on the closer hill was a sign that said Baiersbronn just like the Hollywood sign.

The hotel had a pool and sauna, so that's where we spent our first afternoon.  We went to a restaurant in town and I had some delicious spaetzle with chanterelle mushrooms which were in season and on every menu.  It was a quaint restaurant, very warm and toasty to fight the chill outside.

The next day we had a wonderful traditional German breakfast that we have so missed since the last time we were here.  We've missed out on it this time in our travels because we can't fit in a guest house anymore with all the kids so we have to do property rentals when we travel which means no free breakfast in the mornings.   The beds in these hotels (compared to the rentals) are crazy hard though and that was not so fun for me. Brian, on the other hand, loves a hard bed and slept so much better.

After breakfast we drove to Triberg to hike the highest waterfall in Germany.  You do have to pay to do the hiking.  You could also buy peanuts to feed the squirrels, but I had read that the squirrels didn't really come out for the food.  I think I was right because I saw many uneaten peanuts on the ground and not a single squirrel.  We walked from the bottom to the top, crossed the bridge, and then back down to a restaurant on the other side.

This is just a section of the waterfall.  It's way too tall to get a picture of all of it.

There are two bridges towards the top.  This picture is taken from the higher one, looking down on the other one.

A view from the top of the village

The restaurant was a real treat.  It was on a lake with ducks and there was a huge playground next to the lake as well.  The kids would love it.  We will definitely be back with the kids another time.  The food was good with an interesting international blend to their German cuisine.  I had Barbecue Maltaschen which are noodle "bags" with meat inside, similar to an Asian steamed dumpling.

We took some pictures of some of the ducks and even a video of Brian feeding them to send to my mom to show Bobby, since he loves ducks so much right now.  She said he watched it five times and quacked for 15 minutes after it was over.  So cute!

We did some shopping and drove over to Freiberg for dinner.  The town of Freiberg was a big disappointment because it was a very modern college city.  It had gutter canals through the city that were interesting.  One little boy and his dad had a boat on a string that they were pulling through the canals just like walking a dog.  We had appetizers and beer at a brewery that Brian wanted to try out.  We had chanterelle cream soup and melons with prosciutto.  I also had my first banana beer which was excellent.  Then since there was nothing else to do minus a few shops and walking around looking at the small amount of old architecture that remained in the middle of this modern city, we went to dinner at a small restaurant that had rave reviews on Trip Advisor.  I was kind of full from our appetizer so I just had Maltaschen soup since it was a dish this restaurant was most praised for.

We got back to the hotel really late.  We tried to sleep in the next day a little bit, but when you are used to getting up so early it's hard to sleep much past 7am.  We ate our breakfast and checked out.  We took a small detour on the way home to go see the French pottery town called Souflenheim.  We were able to go into quite a few shops.  There are a multitude of pottery shops in this precious town.  I especially loved the flowers overflowing in nearly every yard and house.

I came home with three sturdy pieces that I love, plus a bowl for Genevieve with her name on it.  She is the only one of our children's names that they had in an entire roomful of personalized bowls.  It is perfect because her name is the one we can not find on anything.

A pot, onion storage jar (with holes,) and a pitcher