The Month of Visitors Begins

We have had a big string of visitors this month.  The first was my uncle and his wife.  They arrived on a Thursday, and I picked them up from the airport and took them to see a church on their way home from the airport.  The church is a Gothic style and compared to the ones in Strausburg and Cologne which are impressive, to say the least.  The huge difference though is that this church in Oppenheim, called Katharinen Kirche, is Protestant.  I thought this would be an easy parking situation since it isn't a huge city like Strausburg or Cologne, but I was wrong.  No parking signs were everywhere.  It would have been a fifteen minute walk up a steep hill to the church from where I found a parking spot.  So our backup plan was for me to "park" the van outside of the church and stay in it while they went in and looked around.  This was fine because I was making this stop for them, not me.  I can go back if I want to later on.  But let me tell you it was some scary driving up to that church.  Winding, narrow roads with no through-way once at the church.  I had to do some fancy maneuvering to get us back out of the little village.

Hannah, Genevieve, and Isaac had stayed at home to watch Bob, do schoolwork, and do some last minute cleaning.  They had done an outstanding job and the house looked very nice when we arrived.  The children gave them the tour of the house.  Then we had lunch and our visitors had a little nap.  Isaac and Genevieve took my uncle on a walk in the woods and the town after that.  I picked up Drew and Judah from Kindergarten that afternoon too.

We then drove out to the Kusel castle called Lichtenberg.  We walked around the ruins and the kids climbed on everything.  There is a tower still standing and we all hauled ourselves up to the top of that for an amazing view.  Hannah carried Bobby, and I wore Judah.  My legs have never been so fatigued, I don't think.  Carrying an extra ten pounds (about how much more Judah weighs than Bob) up all those stairs made a huge difference.  I have carried Bobby up more stairs than that and not felt so sore for so long.  I am a bit out of shape from my trip to America though.

Hello, does it get any cuter?

Someone was not happy that I wanted a quick photo of him on this rock because it meant he was a few steps behind everyone going up the tower.

I guess it was more steps than he thought it would be by the look of him in this picture at the top of the tower.

The View!

Brian met us up there at the castle towards the end of our walk and we had dinner in the castle.

Their first beers in Germany!