Babymoon-Germany

Onto Part 3-Germany! Be ready for picture overload today. We both decided Germany was our favorite part of the whole trip! 

We drove into Germany and had our first of many rainy days. We found a rest stop with free toilets, but they were all metal, and it was REALLY COLD!! We drove on the Autobahn, but it took us a while to figure out we were actually on it. Once we did, our commute times greatly decreased!

Our friend, Matt, told us about this cool little town called Rothenburg ob der Tauber that was one of the most favorite places he has ever visited. 

We arrived in time for the night watchman's tour. 

Rothenburg is a preserved medieval town. The tour guide told us all about the history of the town. It was so interesting! The town was founded in the 1200s and nearly destroyed three times.

The views outside the town were gorgeous!

Here we learned about the Nazi's coming in to try and break down the gate. 

We enjoyed walking around the town, it was just so pretty! It was about 20 degrees colder than we planned so we were freezing. People were actually laughing at us walking around with our blanket wrapped around us!

Every hotel room was a little bit different than the last. It seemed there was always something new. This time, instead of sheets, we were each given a "sleeping bag" type blanket and that was it!

The next morning we ate yummy snowballs for breakfast, 

and did a little shopping. 

Is this not the prettiest town ever? We felt like we were on a movie set it seemed so fake!

The town is also known for Christmas so we checked out a couple Christmas stores! They even had a "Christmas mobile" in the street.

Then we climbed up to the wall where the night watchmen used to patrol the town each night. The views were so pretty!

When the town ran out of money people donated money to help keep the town running and were given engraved blocks to purchase a portion of the wall.

We headed on down the road and was able to see some gorgeous views of the German alps. The weather was cold and rainy in Rothenburg, but as we kept driving the weather only got nicer!

We made a quick stop at a grocery store to pick up some water and other snacks. For not knowing any foreign languages, I think we managed pretty well! That afternoon we stopped at a Biergarten for brats and fries.  

Then we took a little hike to tour the Newschwanstein castle.

It was beautiful!

They made Matt switch his backpack around before our tour so I thought it was the perfect opportunity for a great "tourist" picture! 

The views from the castle were gorgeous!!

We headed on down the road but stopped to get a few more pictures of the castle!

We stopped in Garmisch for dinner to eat at this cool place Jill told me about. Unfortunately, it was closed, but we had a great time exploring the town!

We found a German restaurant to stop for dinner. It tasted exactly like Grandma Mark's food, and we really enjoyed it!

We had such a great time in southern Germany; we know it is definitely one place we will be back to! We drove into Austria that night. The mountains were enormous! At one point, we drove down at 16% grade  hill. I didn't realize they ever went above 10%. It was steep! Most night we had a double bed but this night we got a king sized bed! Except, it was actually just two double beds pushed together. Always something new for us to experience!

At this point, I realized I should have set up some Fitbit challenges because I definitely would have won!

Check back tomorrow for Part 4.

Babymoon-Brussels and Luxembourg

Onto Part 2 of our trip! We got into Brussels on Sunday night and headed for our hotel. Brussels had the most confusing transportation system of any city we ever visited. Maybe it was because it was the first time we were reading another language or maybe it is just really confusing, not sure. Either way, I'm glad we didn't plan on using it too much!

We were a couple blocks away from Grand Place which is kind of the town square in Brussels. Monday was Labour Day in Europe so there was a big celebration going on in the town square. It was so beautiful! 

We were always a few hours late to eat a meal so we usually just ended up with whatever was open. This night we ended up with Italian and had our first of many experiences of eating pizza with a knife and fork. After dinner we stopped for some yummy Belgian chocolates! I also had my first sharp pains of pregnancy at our hotel in Brussels-another "fun" memory from our trip.

The next morning we headed out to get our rental car. It was much better than the one we had last summer on our US road trip because it actually had cruise control! Yes, that is our standard now for a rental car.

We checked out the Atomium before leaving Brussels. 

We headed out on the road. We were happy to spot a few American made cars on the road! Everything was written in French while we were in Brussels. Thank goodness for google translate!

We stopped in Luxembourg for lunch. 

The flowers were so pretty!

We walked around and checked out the churches. There is one cathedral in all of Luxembourg, and this is it!

The Protestant church was open for viewing which was our first of many stops at a church.

Since it was Labour Day, the restaurants were closed or required reservations. We found a McDonald's and were highly considering it when we saw another place next door. Turns out the Quick Burger is the European version of McDonald's, but it was still good! We also had our first experience of many to pay to use the toilets. I am so thankful to be back in the US with free, regular toilets whenever I need!

The weather was 10-20 degrees colder everyday than what we planned so we were usually cold! However all of the stores are ready for summer, and there is a huge catci theme going on this year. We kept finding catci all over the store windows! Guess we live in the right part of the world to be in style this season!

We planned to stop and visit my friend Jill in Germany that afternoon, but she got stuck on the army base so we continued on our way. We spent the next couple days in Germany. Check back tomorrow for Part 3-Germany!