Salzburg, Hallstat and Konigsee....and some places in between

We just returned from a whirlwind 5 day trip to Salzburg, Austria. It was gorgeous! We stopped in a cute town called Burghausen which is home to the largest fortress in Europe. Then off to our hotel which overlooked Salzburg and we had a splendid view of the mountains. We ate an overpriced but delicious dinner and went to bed dreaming of our upcoming adventures. Monday morning we got up and went to Berchtesgaden and to Konigssee Lake. The weather was not on our side as we had some rain in the morning. We then drove over to Hallstat Lake where we walked through the little town and had an early dinner before we headed back to our hotel.

The Bavarian and Polish Coat of Arms at Burghausen

Lunch in Hallstat

On Tuesday it was pouring rain and we were unsure of what we were going to do as that was our day to tour Salzburg. We ended up at a large mall where we had lunch at Ikea and bought a new umbrella so we could at least stay dry while we were outdoors. We parked near the altstadt and began our tour with a Rick Steves book in hand to guide us around. We saw the home where Mozart was born, a couple of places where scenes from The Sound of Music were filmed, looked inside some gorgeous churches and enjoyed the old achitecture in the city. At the end of the day we made our way back to the Jeep and found a grocery store where we picked up some bread, meat and cheese for dinner. It ended up being a nice day and we didn't need the umbrella for too long.

Castle and Mirabell Garden in Salzburg

We woke up to sunny skies on Wednesday and took advantage of the nicer weather. We visited Mirabell park where we got an amazing view of the castle. The scene from The Sound of Music where they are singing the Do Re Mi song was partly filmed in this park as well. They had a little loop that had statues of dwarfs and a small play ground where Aubrey played for a bit. Then we drove to Hellanbrun (James will be mad because I just forgot how to spell it) Schloss and saw the gazebo from The Sound of Music where they song Sixteen going on Seventeen was filmed. There was a large park there that we walked through and found a cool area where they had a small wading pool and a neat misting walk through thing. Aubrey loved this area so much. Once she saw me turn on the mister she was all over it. She was getting very wet so I took her shirt off and let her play a bit longer. We had fun watching her play. For our last part of the day we drove up a mountain that we could see from our hotel room to check out the view from high up. Salzburg is so beautiful!

Finally, on the way home yesterday we took a ferry boat to visit the Royal Palace of Herrenchiemsee. This is another one of King Ludwigs palaces. This is an amazing structure modeled after Versailles. Then we began the drive home which is an adventure of it's own. Traffic is a bear here. You hit it and expect to add at least an hour to your trip.

I should be sleeping...

Instead of sitting at the computer. We have to be up earlier than normal tomorrow morning because we have plans and it seriously takes us forever to get out of this house. We are all very slow in the mornings with or without coffee. I still haven't downloaded the program to reduce the size of our photos. I really need to do that. I will do that, next week! I hope to have alot of new pictures to share next week, too.

I am adding just one picture because it takes soooooooo long to upload them at their size. I could make the pixels smaller but I just hate thinking about doing that. I get super paranoid that I might need that full size photo and I won't have it if I take a lower pixel shot. I am still trying to figure out all the things that my camera can do. It is such an amazing thing! The girls LOVE the camera. If only they loved to sit still so I could take a couple pictures of them then I would be happy momma. Anyways, this is a photo taken last weekend of Lolo and me in a little town James wanted to visit on our way back from Munich. I realized that I need to make sure that James and I end up in more pictures as we seem to be absent in most of them. I want to make sure that we have alot of photos that show interactions with the girls...not just posed shots. If I could only figure out photo editing in Photoshop Elements.

So this has proven to be a very random post, but hey, this is what happens when I am blogging at midnight. I hope you all have a great weekend!

New Computer = No pictures

I was going to add some of our pictures from this weekend but I don't have the program to resize our photos on our computer. I will take care of that sometime this week (I hope) and get some pics added. I have been busy sewing little things together and I realized that while I am not a great seamstress I can finish things nicely. I like seeing things come together. It makes me happy!

Rained Out

Here we sit in our hotel room as we were rained out today. Yesterday was nice and we really had a nice time walking in Munich. We ate lunch at the Hofbrau house and I got a frappuccino from Starbucks. Today we got up a little late, ate breakfast and by the time we got off the train at the Marienplatz it was raining. Just a sprinkle for the first 10 minutes we said we would tough it out and covered the strollers with rain covers. We went into Starbucks for a quick minute and then it was pouring by the time we came out. By the time we made it back to a train station James and I were soaked through. So here we are trying to dry out, eating a quick lunch of bread, salami and cheese and watching the MTV Movie Awards on MTV Deutschland (it is in English with German subtitles so we can understand everything!).

And she is walking!

Lolo busted out her first independent steps yesterday afternoon! It was so exciting to see her do that. We did lots of clapping, hugging and kissing to celebrate. We had a great day and I am so glad I got to witness her first steps. I missed that with Aubrey as she was in daycare. I am thankful every day that I get to be at home with the girls now.

Summer is here for one day a week

I inflated the girls pool when we got home Monday night as it was pretty darn hot. I filled it and let Aubrey splash around for a bit until her teeth started chattering. The air was warm but the water was freezing. The next day it warmed up enough for me to get both of the girls in the pool for a bit. They had a grand time splashing around! Lolo loves the water just as much as Aubrey and even bath time is exciting for them. It gives me so much joy to see the girls so happy and playing together. Too bad the weather hasn't been as nice! It is been cold and raining every day since Tuesday. This morning the skies were a beautiful shade of blue and not a cloud in sight. Now it is overcast, breezy and about to rain. I guess the bathtub will have to do for today.

Romantic Weekend

For the long weekend we headed back up to the Rhine and stayed a couple nights. I just love the area. There are castles every couple of miles, lots of traffic along the river, cute little towns and lots of vineyards. It is an amazing place. We walked along a little spit to see the statue of Loreley and got an amazing view of The Loreley (a dangerous spot in the river where many ships crashed and it was blamed on a beautiful siren named Loreley), a couple little towns and Burg Katz.

View of the spit and Burg Katz from a hilltop

The Loreley Statue

We also drove over to visit Burg Eltz and did a quick hike down to get some great pictures there. It is amazing to think that this castle is over 700 years old and it has never been destroyed. We also passed a beautiful castle sitting on top of a vineyard. We were pretty impressed by this one, maybe because it was sprawled out across the hill rather than condensed onto on small spot along the river like many other castles in that area.

Burg Eltz

View of a castle from below

Finally, my favorite picture from the entire weekend. The 3 loves of my life sharing a sweet moment. Aubrey was picking flowers while I was taking pictures of the river below. I turned around and caught her sharing with Lolo. These are the moments that take my breath away. The view was nice but this tender picture made my day.