European vacation part 2

This posting will wrap up our time in Germany. We toured the castle the first day there, and then Sunday was spent mostly with the local Church of Christ there. The church building is shared by 2 groups, the German speaking group and the English speaking group (which consists mainly of American military families). That morning they had a combined service, and our group led the service that day. Our worship minister, Raymond Schultz led the worship that morning, and the praise team sang 2 songs we had been working on in German (O Sacred Head, and I Need Thee Every Hour). It was really neat to hear how loudly the Germans joined us in our German songs, and by the way, O Sacred Head sounds wonderful in German (although it was quite a pain learning how to pronounce it!) That night, we had a full hour of praise and worship, which was attended by primarily the english speaking group, and it was again a blessing to share our music with others. We were also blessed with the entire experience of worshipping across the world with strangers, using different languages, but all worshipping the same God. Our last day in Germany we went to a nearby town. They had a palace with gardens that were the size of about 58 football fields. It was neverending paths with fountains, sculptures, and bridges at every turn. It was beautiful and we spent the whole day wandering around and admiring everything. In Heidelberg, there was a town square that we spent much of our time just sitting and visiting. In fact, there was one table in the corner of the square that we claimed as ours. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of us at that table, but it holds many happy memories of our time in Germany. Each night we would walk around and look at shops and pick places to eat dinner. They had many street vendors that we gave business to as well: brats, crepes, gelatto ice cream, and more. The pictures really don't do justice, but hopefully will give you a glimpse of our time there.

One of the local hotels. This type of building and greenery out front was the norm. Notice the cobblestone street as well.

This is the bank of the Nekar river that ran through the town. This picture was taken Sunday afternoon. All the locals just came to the river bank and spent the afternoon out with their family and pets. Side note: Germany is VERY pet friendly. It was common to see dogs on the trains, buses, even outdoors on the restaurant patios.

Stairwell in our hotel; the other couple is Cary and Andria Tucker who are good friends of ours who also went on the trip.

This is the riverbank on the other side of the bridge, again just showing the local activity on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

This was taken at the palace gardens. The Tuckers are there, as well as our friends Mark and Destin and their baby Nash. Let me tell you, that baby was amazing on this trip. We carted him around everywhere and he hardly fussed!

Another fountain with sculptures at the palace gardens.

This is at the top of the structure with the view of some more of the gardens behind us. Destin's mom Jonesa is with us, she came to help babysit Nash.

Andria and I are waving from our window at our hotel. Goodbye Germany!

European vacation part 1

There will be several more posts to come, but here are the first pictures and stories from our vacation to Europe. We had an amazing time. We went with a group from church, which included several of our closest friends which made it even better. We loved every part of it, and in a way we really didn't want to come home. These first pictures are from our first day when we arrived. We were in Heidelberg, Germany. If we look tired, it's because we are! We had been awake for over 24 hours at this point, but we had to stay awake so we could quickly readjust to the time change, which we did. We were not prepared for how much we would love Germany. It was so beautiful, and the town was small, and quaint, and friendly, and peaceful. We wished we would have had more than 3 days there, but it was 3 days well spent!

This was our hotel. It was very old, and we had to walk up 4 flights of stairs to get to our room (there was no elevator). But we enjoyed the quaintness of it and felt like we had a better German experience.

This was taken on the bridge in town. If you look on the mountain behind us, you can see the castle. This is one of the only castles in Germany that was not damaged or bombed in WWII.

Closer picture of the castle.

We toured the castle, and this picture was taken standing at the castle wall. The grassy area you see below is actually the moat area.

Note the date, 1779. This was to signify the time that they built the "new" part of the wall. I don't recall the date of the original walls, but I was blown away that the new section was over 200 years old.

Inside the castle, the courtyard area.

There was a wedding reception inside the castle courtyard, so we took a picture. How fun to say part of your wedding took place at a real castle!