Bruchmuhlbach, Germany

Nate has a great friend that deployed mid-April.  

He was extremely generous and offered his house up to us while he was gone.  It didn't take much convincing for us to say YES!  The temporary furniture we were loaned was horrible!

His village, Bruchmuhlbach, is bigger than Erzenhausen.  His house is on a pretty busy street.  It is next to a bakery and we have enjoyed pastries for breakfast!!  It is also in walking distance of a grocery store.  I took this picture of this cool German house after a quick walk to the Penny Markt.

I have to drive almost 30 minutes to drop the boys off for school and pick them up each day.  I am not loving the amount of gas I am purchasing, but it is a nice drive. 

 This church is in the neighboring village of Hauptstuhl.

This pretty farm is also in Hauptstuhl.  

Burg Lichtenberg

We decided to have our last nice German meal at the very first castle we visited when we arrived.  

 Burg Lichtenberg is only about 20 minutes away and it is free to visit.  

We've taken lots of guests here!

 We let the fellas climb all around and they did not want to stop to go eat.

 Ethan was very excited to have schnitzel one more time before we left.  

This boy ate his weight in schnitzel these past three years.  

On the other hand, Lincoln is SICK of schnitzel.  He opted for smoked trout and potato pancakes. 

 He ate a bit of my ravioli and Nate's salmon too.   I think he is over German food already!

I am super happy we were able to slip this castle dinner in to our busy packing/cleaning weekend.

Fields of Gold

 For Mother's Day, I asked the fellas to take some pictures in the rape seed fields! 

 They complied.  I can't say they were super happy about it, but they know how much I love pictures!

 We found a field between Weilerbach and Erzenhausen where we took 

sunflower pictures the year before.  

 It was gorgeous Sunday!

 Little Love!

 Big Love!

 My Sweetest Love!

 My German love, Erzenhausen!!!

 Weilerbach

Happy Mother's Day!

Idar Oberstein Visit

 We have THREE weeks left!  It is going so fast!  We wanted to visit Idar Oberstein again before we leave.  It was a perfect afternoon to go with the Grogans, and only a 45 minute drive.

 We hiked up to the Felsenkirche and the castle.  

 After the hike, they felt like strong guys!

 This was our fourth trip to Idar Oberstein and the FIRST time the castle has been open!

 Julian found this cool pot for sale.  Only 5 euros!

 Of course, it got our guys wanting a souvenir!  They bought gems down in the village.  

I might have gotten a bracelet too!  :) 

 How often do you get to hang out in a castle overlooking the village?

 We hiked back down for dinner.  This is the castle we were in before.  

 The Felsenkirche (church in the rock).

 Buying gems!

 We ended our evening having steaks and baked potatoes in a building built in 1392!

Delicious!  I am so happy that we were able to go one more time!  This village is unique and special!

Hike to the Windmills

We move into a friend's house next week for the remaining weeks of our stay in Germany.  I had ONE more thing that I wanted to do before we left Erzenhausen:  hike to the windmills.  

I told the fellas that on Saturday morning we were making the hike.  

Once we got to the top of the hill, we stopped to take a picture of the scenery.  

I noticed two horses sprinting towards us.  

I think they thought we had food.  

Well hello there!!!

They were so friendly.  

Ethan picked up every rock and stick he could find!

After what seemed like HOURS we finally found them!

We see these everyday, and they seem so close.  Once you get up to one you realize how HUGE they are and how they are really far away from us down in Erzenhausen.

We glanced at my watch and realized that we only had two hours before Link's baseball game!  

We started hustling home!

Last peek over my shoulder!

I made a big mistake of thinking that if we took this path it would be MUCH shorter!  Oops....the path ended and we had to back track.  Our hike ended up taking us 2 hours and 20 minutes.  Both guys had baseball today AND Link had his birthday party at World of Fun tonight.  

These guys are going to sleep GOOD!!!

Hike to the Windmills-CHECK!!!

Man, we are going to miss Erzenhausen!