German American Volksfest

This post is going to be mostly pictures because my children are too adorable to not share, I may be a little biased though! Since moving to Germany I have wanted to get them traditional German clothes so for the fest (and many more times) we got Harper a dirndl and Waylon some lederhosen. Oh boy did they look amazing in them too.

The German American fest is held in Grafenwohr on the Army base there. Colby's buddy from AIT is stationed there so he met us at the fest. They had all sorts of American things at the fest along with traditional German things too. We rode several of the amusement park style rides with the kids and found out at least Harper, and Waylon a little, are total thrill seekers already. I love it! I got to go on the rides with them. Harper's favorite were the octopus, yes they still have that one, and the giant "swings". They were more of a porch swing style seat but you were tilted so you went up really high and then back down while going round and round.

The American food I really wanted was a blooming onion. When I say someone else eating on it brought me back to the South Dakota State Fair. It also made me a little sad knowing that I have no clue when I will be able to attend the fair again. I am 27 years old and I don't remember ever missing it. This will be my first, of many, that I will have to miss the fair. Anyways we walked around to find where they were selling the blooming onions and the line was ridiculous! It was hot and the kids seem cranky because all they wanted to do was ride the rides. So I passed up the onion, which was probably better for my diet anyway.

They also had Stars Wars characters walking around taking pictures with people. We were able to get a picture with Darth Vader. It was fun to get a little taste of home even though we didn't even eat any of the American food. We will be stateside soon enough.

Birthday Fun: Sea Life Munich & Colmburg Castle

Our little girl turned 4 at the end of July and this was here first birthday here in Germany. We gave her a couple options for what she wanted to do on her birthday weekend. She choose to go to Sea Life in Munich. The aquarium was nice and the kids really had a good time seeing the fish and sharks but we all thought it was small. The kids wanted to see more when we were done. It is also set up so you go in and walk around in the same direction as everyone else and then your just done, no warning nothing your just in the gift shop. I had looked on the website and knew there were sharks which yes there were plenty small to medium one but it also showed there would be sea turtles and octopi. Well there was one sea turtle and he didn't care much for the view spots and I completely missed the octopus. My husband saw it I guess and said it was a small one. That was disappointing.

The really cool part of Sea Life was the tank with the rays and some fish. It was an open tank so you could look in the top and touch the water even though I don't think you were suppose to. There was a lady talking about them but it was in German so we didn't pay attention. One of the rays really loved all the attention though. It was sticking its "head" out of the water and swimming up to people. It swam right up but Harper and looked at her. I thought that was very cool.


For her birthday supper we took her to Colmburg Castle which is only about 20-30 minutes outside of Ansbach. Harper is very much into princesses so we thought it was only fitting for her to celebrate her birthday at a castle. She loved it! We all got dressed up to go even though it isn't a fancy place and most people were dresses casually. Harper chose to wear one of her princess dresses and picked out my "princess" dress and daddy's prince shirt. I know that it made her feel special to get all dressed up and go out for her birthday. The food there is traditional German. The menu is more specialized with a few appetizers, a couple soups and handful of entrees and a couple desserts. Prices were little above average I would say. Even with a smaller menu the food was very good.

The castle is also a hotel along with the restaurant. We are thinking it may be cool to stay there for a little staycation sometime. Maybe for Harper's birthday next year or something. It is definitely something she would remember and not something you get the opportunity to do very often.

Overall, I would say she had a great birthday weekend with her adventures.

Wertheim

This was a spontaneous trip. It was a nice Saturday, maybe a little hot, and we were doing nothing. We had planned to just sit at home but after breakfast I looked at Colby and said "I want to do something today" So we decided it would be cool to find a castle ruin. I hoped on Facebook and found the suggestion of Wertheim. I then googled it and realized it was pretty close to us. So we loaded up the kids and headed out.

We found a parking garage and then headed first to the castle ruins. The castle is of course on the top of a hill over looking the old city and the river. The ruins are very well preserved and there is a restaurant within the ruins. We skipped the restaurant and went on to explore the ruins. The palace face is completely there along with a two towers. One had a couple steps left of the spiral staircase and the other you could go up in. There was a whole part of the ruins that we couldn't get to and there was also a theater type area with chairs set up that was shut off to us that day. We love visiting castle ruins as the kids can basically run around and no one cares. We don't have to tell them to be quiet or don't touch something. Germany is full of them too which is amazing.


From the top of the castle we could see everything in the city and they had amazing maps pointing out what different points were. After a little snack break at the castle we took a stair case down to the two churches right below the castle. The first is more of a chapel. Inside was some pieces from the original church I would assume. Most everything is in German so I can't know for sure. There was also a huge painting.

Across the street from the chapel was the big church that is still in use today. They were doing some renovation and restoration at the alter while we were there but it was still beautiful. The had a metal globe with the continents welded on which I thought was very unique. We were able to just sit inside the church for a little bit as we listened to the huge organ the had in the back of church play. Even the kids just sat quietly in awe of the church and the music. The atmosphere was just amazing.

This was the first church we have visited that was playing music while we were inside and it just seemed magically. This church also had a guest book. I enjoy signing guest books now since we are so far from our "home of record" as the Army likes to call it. Even though our current home is here in Ansbach I always like to sign that we are from South Dakota, USA. I would guess a lot of these places don't get a lot of visitors from South Dakota and many Europeans probably don't even know where it is. Which I completely understand. I didn't know much about where european countries were until we moved here.

After we visited the church, the kids were getting hungry. It was pretty hot but that wouldn't of made of difference, they of course wanted ice cream. There just happened to be an ice cream shop right across the street from the church. So we got ice cream and then found a bench and a kids train to sit and enjoy are ice cream and just relax a little. We then just wondered around the town taking in the site and looking for someplace to get a postcard. Of course everything closes pretty early in Germany so by 3 or 4 everything was closing down. By the time we wondered around enough to find the tourist information center they were closed. We could see inside that they had post cards so I was a little frustrated but oh well it happens I guess. At least I have my own pictures to remember the place. The cousins just didn't get a postcard from there. It ended up being a really cool day trip for us.