Deustchland!

Colby and I just got back from our first foray into the world of flying Space A. We visited my sister in Germany for a few weeks and had a wonderful time! Colby loved flying on the military planes, especially when they let him climb up to the cockpit. I loved flying on them because we got to stretch out on the floor and sleep pretty much the whole way - you just can't pull that off on a commercial plane! After taking a day or so to settle in and recover from the jet lag, I talked Melinda into taking us up to Heidelberg to see the castle, which is actually called a schloss. It was on a hill above the city, so we had this wonderful view of the valley with the Neckar river going through it from the grounds. Colby was a little disappointed that it wasn't Sleeping Beauty's castle, but I think being able to climb on top of the world's largest wine cask sort of made up for it.
Driving up there was pretty interesting, so thank heavens we had a GPS. I found that it's quite the necessity if you're going to be driving around in Germany. Melinda actually laughed at me when I suggested using Google maps - boy was that justified!
We also went to a few places in Kaiserslautern, which is the nearest "big" city to Landstuhl and Ramstein. There was a really cool shopping district that was only for pedestrians, and where, more importantly, I discovered that they have my favorite chocolate croissants! We also went to the zoo, and a really cool dinosaur park. They had a great playground at the dinosaur park, with awesome slides, a tree house, gigantic swinging baskets, and a water play area. The kids had a great time just getting wet.
My favorite place we went to, though, was Trier. It's right on the border by Luxembourg, and was one of the major cities of the Roman Empire. The best part was the Porta Nigra. I took the three older kids (Bryce, Haylee and Colby) inside and took so many pictures of the detail that the kids started to make fun of me. This was Bryce and Haylee going "Oh, look at that fireplace! Look at that detail! Isn't it beautiful?!" because I had been saying that about pretty much everything. They'll thank me when they're older, I'm sure :)
Trier as a whole was awesome since there were Roman buildings and statues and walls everywhere. Melinda probably thought I was going to have a coronary I was so excited to see everything. We took the kids on a a train ride tour around the city, so I could see everything, but we didn't have to wear the kids out with all that walking. After that we walked from the Porta Nigra down to the cathedral and the Roman basilica. The ruins of the Roman baths were nearby as well. I was in heaven pretty much the whole day. The only thing that could have made it better was if I was actually in Rome.
Our last outing was to the castle in Landstuhl. It's all in ruins, but is absolutely beautiful. You can see the rock under some of the walls, since they basically carved the castle out of the hill. Bryce and Haylee showed me their "Little Grand Canyon" on the hill above the castle, which had a great view. We had a great time, especially since it was the last day we had before Colby and I left. Or so we thought.
We headed to the terminal to catch a flight out of Germany, and discovered that almost every other family stationed there was trying to do the same thing. Add that to the mechanical problems they had on a lot of planes, and you get a bunch of very grumpy people waiting in the terminal for days on end trying to get back to the states. Colby and I ended up waiting 5 days before we finally got on a plane back here, which we had to show up for at 4 in the morning. It was a really long two days, but we made it back here eventually. We had a wonderful time visiting family and seeing new places, and we can't wait to go back for Christmas! We're already missing Melinda and the kids, and I'm already craving the real Fanta. If anyone has tips on how Melinda can mail me some, let me know!