Salzburg, Austria

After our time in Germany, we woke up one morning, ate breakfast, finished packing, checked out of our hotel, got in our rental car and started the drive to Austria.  Within an hour of the drive all 3 kids were sleeping.  Score for mommy and daddy!  Alone time on vacation without anyone interrupting our conversations!  YES!  Brooks and I were excited about the scenery and of course it was raining, cloudy, and a dreary day.  Oh well.  

Before we crossed the border we had to stop and get tags for our car and Brooks was told he had to drive in Austria with a bright, orange vest on.  Hmmm...  He started out wearing it and we made a deal if the next 10 drivers that passed us on the highway weren't wearing a vest then he couldn't wear it.  2 minutes later, the vest was off.  Such a strange concept.

We finally arrived in Salzburg and after checking into our hotel we started our visit on the hunt for food.  Once again, we were using a Ric Steve's book for recommendations.  The day continued to be cold, rainy, and dreary, but thankfully while we were walking it never became a down pour.  After searching for 2 restaurants and checking out their menus outside, we picked one, went back to it and they were closed until dinner.  Bummer.  We found a cafe nearby that had a table in the back corner so the kids could be contained without bothering the other people there.  As soon as we walked out of the restaurant it started raining.  I mean pouring down rain!  We quickly ran into a covered area while Brooks went and found us some large umbrellas.  We only had two days in Salzburg so there was no way we could afford to go to the hotel and sit while it was raining.  The boys got to run around in the "tunnel" while I got Brooklyn readjusted and in some warmer clothes.  Brooks was so sweet and got the boys some wooden swords as a gift when he picked up the umbrellas and those things entertained them the entire trip!  Perfect idea daddy!

We toured Salzburg's Old Town and saw tons of gorgeous buildings, Cathedrals, fountains, statues, and more.  One of the beautiful places was the Domplatz (Cathedral Square).  It rained on us the entire time, but that didn't stop us from enjoying the architecture and ornate, detailed places.  

Brooklyn was stuck in the carrier throughout the entire day and was so relieved to be free once we got to our hotel.  She was excited!!

The next day we spent the morning on a Sound of Music Tour.  The movie is very popular in our house and was somewhat of a dream to go see the sights and locations from the movie so while we were in Salzburg we couldn't pass up the chance.  Thankfully, we were the only people on our tour so we didn't have to share our car with anyone else.  Our tour guide was a history fanatic and eagerly shared a multitude of information that had NOTHING to do with The Sound of Music, but was extremely interesting to learn about the city and what all was around.

For starters, we saw the child hood home of Mozart.  We also saw the building where the doctor who invented ultrasounds lived.

Our first stop on the tour was the Palace that was used as the back of the Van Trapp family house in SOM.  This was also the lake where the kids fell into the water.  Miles and Brooklyn were asleep in the car so we left the van door open while walking along the water.

The Salzburg Castle

Our next stop on the tour was the home used as the front of the VanTrapp family home.  Since our tour guide had a taxi license he was willing to drive us right up to the house and circled around the premises.  This building is now a Music School.  Next, we visited the Gazebo where the song "I am 16 Going on 17" was filmed.  The Gazebo was donated to the city and moved from its original location and now sits in local park.  You can't go inside it, but it was still neat to see.  

Outside the park and alongside the road from the Yellow House is the lane where Maria sang "I Have Confidence".

Our next part of the tour was to drive up to The Lake District.  It was a very scenic drive and we got to see unique places, including Red Bull Headquarters.  Behind us is the mountain where Hitler did something (can't remember what it was for the life of me).

During the tour, we stopped at a restaurant and ate some lunch.  The view was breathtaking and behind us you'll see one of the lakes that was used in the movie.  Along our drive we saw the mountains where Maria sang "The Hills are Alive" and where the kids met for "song lessons" and play time.  It was all just beautiful!

Here's the church where they filmed the Van Trapps getting married.  The actual church was somewhere else in the city along our tour that we passed in the van.

After visiting the church, our tour became extremely interesting.  Our guide told us he had another tour  group to pick up at 2pm.  It was now 1:20pm.  We still had a 25 minute drive back to the city and also had one more stop on our tour-- the Mirabell Gardens, the scene where Maria and the kids run through the hedge tunnel as well as the steps where they sing "Do Re Me".  Our tour guide ended up taking the highway back to the city versus the scenic route, which was actually fine by me since I tend to get car sick.  After almost getting in a wreck he drove us up to the entrance of the Gardens, literally threw us, our kids, 2 strollers, 2 car seats, and all our bags from the day (including jackets, umbrellas, baby carriers, diaper bags) out of the car.  It was now 2:00pm.  Brooks and I were just in shock.  He preceded to tell us we'd have to get back to our hotel on our own.  HAHA. Brooks and I just laughed at each other.  We knew there was no point in getting upset about it, we couldn't control it and at this point our driver had already driven off.  Thankfully, our hotel was 2 blocks away.  We made the most out of the rest of our tour after organizing and regrouping all our stuff into the least amount possible, we dumped Miles car seat at the entrance of the Gardens and prayed and hoped that no one would take it.  We attached Brooklyns carrier to the handles of our umbrella stroller (thank goodness I saw that done on the Duggars a long time ago) and off we went.  The Mirabell Gardens were beautiful.  It was clean and pretty, with gorgeous flowers and interesting statues all over.  The view of the Salzburg Castle through the fountains and buildings was BREATHTAKING.

After making several trips to the hotel to get all of our stuff back, we decided to let the kids all nap in the strollers while Brooks and I continued touring the city.  We wanted to make the most of our time in Salzburg since we were leaving the next morning.  Since it wasn't raining this day, we decided to go back to the Old Town and Domplatz and finish seeing all the sights we missed the day before.  We were so glad we did.  We didn't realize how much we had missed out on.  The views were gorgeous around town and we were really able to take in the whole city.  We visited St. Peter's Abbey right before they closed and spent some time in the square outside of it and let the kids run around.  It was almost 6:00pm, the sun was going down, it was getting cooler, the kids were running around playing, s Brooks and I took some time to enjoy uninterrupted time just the two of us to take everything in.

Our 3 troopers.  They didn't let the cold weather bother them!  They were as happy as could be!

After having dinner at a fun restaurant and checking out a few other sights in the city during the evening, we headed back to our hotel, packed our bags, went to bed really late and prepared for our next trip to Fussen, Germany.  Salzburg was a fun place to visit and we so wish we would have had more time in the city and maybe even the surrounding areas.

**On a side note: the week we got back from our trip we watched The Sound of Music again to look for all the sights we visited.  It was pretty cool to say, "hey, we've been there!"

Germany Vacation

We finally got to take our first, real, big family vacation since moving over to the Middle East and it was an awesome and amazing trip.  I'm so glad that we decided to go to Germany, Austria, and Switzerland for this trip!  We originally planned on going to Singapore or Thailand, but decided to hold off on those trips for another time.  Let me preface this blog by saying how amazing our kids were the entire time!!  Don't get me wrong, they had a few moments, but for as much walking, moving, traveling, driving, sight seeing as they did, and for as many restaurants they went inside that had very few kid friendly foods they were exceptional!!!  I may have to save a separate post for traveling with kids and what all we went through to help make traveling with these guys a success!

Our journey began leaving Saudi during the middle of the night.  We flew into Doha then into Munich, Germany(during Oktoberfest none the less).  We arrived in the afternoon, found our rental car and immediately almost got into a wreck when Brooks turned the car on while standing outside the vehicle with the kids and I buckled inside.  He jumped in and slammed on the brakes just inches away from the parking garage wall.  After that little episode we drove off to find our hotel.  After unpacking our luggage and relaxing for a bit we headed off to the famous Hofbrauhaus.   That place was wild and it was a zoo in there.  We learned our lesson that night of what Beer Gardens are and where NOT to take kids.  

 

Our next day we spent a majority of the day checking out all the sights.  We went along with Ric Steve's suggestions of sights to see while in Munich.  After breakfast and a stop at Starbucks, we parked at The National Theater (first pic below) and walked to the heart of Munich's main square "Marienplatz" just in time to see, hear, and watch the "glockenspiel" clock towers going off!  Gavin and Miles loved watching the jousting scene and the dancers!  We literally walked up 2 minutes before it started and it only runs twice a day.  Perfect!! 

 

 

The Old Town Hall and the Neo-Gothic New Town Hall were beautiful.  There were tons of people in the plaza area, beautiful fountains, and amazing sights to take in.

As we continued on our walking tour we saw St. Peter's Church (the oldest church in town), St. Michael's Church, Frauenkirche, which is the symbol of the city (twin onion domes, one of which was being renovated while we were there).  Along our walk Gavin kept finding statues of various types of animals and had strong desires to ride them.  So, we let him and of course, if one does it, the other wants to do it.  You'd be amazed at how many animal statues are around this city!

We toured the inside of many of the Cathedrals we walked by and they were breathtaking.

 

Eventually, everyone was hungry so we went for another experience at a Beer Garden (this time during the day) and ate outside for lunch.  The kids were greeted with huge pretzels out on the table-- something they were extremely intrigued with and enjoyed!  We also found a neat Beer Garden filled with outdoor shops and kiosk type eating spots.  You could browse through the market admiring local trinkets, do some souvenir shopping, and taste Bavarian foods.  Check out the maypole we saw.

 

 

If you ask Gavin what one of his favorite parts about his trip was, somewhere in his long list he will tell you about "the rocks".  On our walking tour we found this cute area that was surrounded with staircase rocks and a fountain.  He jumped and climbed and ran around and thought this was the best thing ever. Throughout the day he kept asking to go back to the rocks and for days later he kept looking for the rocks!

 

We walked A LOT that first day and eventually everyone needed a little break.  Miles was asleep in the stroller so we took advantage of the down time and stopped on the stairs outside a museum and relaxed.  

We toured the Residenz, the palace of the Wittelsbach royal family.  I took almost 100 pictures in this palace since it was simply unreal.  There were paintings, and statues, and ornate window treatments, insanely unique furniture and decor.  This was also our first palace to tour so I took it all in.  I learned over the trip as you tour multiple palaces, Cathedrals, to look for what makes that place the most unique and take that in.  You really see a lot!!

After our tour we wanted to let the kids run around and play so we went to the Hofgarten.  Here, we're in front of The "Renaissancce" temple, which is the centerpiece of the court garden.  The kids played in the rocks while Brooks and I did some people watching.

Our next day consisted of touring the Deutches Museum in the morning and then some more sightseeing throughout the city.  The Deutches Museum was fun for all of us.  Brooks and I were able to enjoy learning about all the various displays in the museum that were also interesting to the kids- there were boats and planes and

 

The best part of the Deutches Museum was the museum they had downstairs for the kids.  Think Childrens Museum but bigger!  The kids ran around from one exhibit to another loving it!  They played and explored and touched every single toy and gadget they found.  It was a lot of fun and extremely enjoyable for them.

 

We finished our day driving through the city looking at all the huge, amazing buildings-- Brooks LOVED the architectural structures everywhere.  We also drove by Olympic Park where the 1972 Olympic games were.

Our last day in Munich we drove to Dachau Concentration Camp.  Initially, we were not going to make this stop since we had the kids with us and knew it wasn't appropriate for them, but once we arrived in the area, we just couldn't handle being so close and missing out.  I'm so glad we decided to go and I have to say it was the most humbling experience ever.  To think that we were walking the very grounds  that many who were murdered and treated so horribly stayed was a somber experience.  Upon arriving on the grounds you have the option of picking up audio guides for extra information around the grounds.  We picked up 3.  Two were in English and one was in German (incase one of the boys wanted to listen then they couldn't understand what was being said).  We brought 2 strollers with us and put each of the boys in a stroller.  We made sure that Gavin was in our big stroller that had the larger canopy.  We opened it up so Gavin couldn't see out of the stroller.  We gave him his Leap Pad, headphones, snacks, candy, and toys and told him he wasn't allowed to open the canopy.  He obeyed.  We wanted to make sure Gavin wouldn't see any horrific images and pictures (there were many in the museum) or hear anything that could put fear in his heart.  Miles was oblivious to everything.  He snacked the entire time and played with the German audio guide.  Brooklyn slept most of the time in the carrier so Brooks and I were able to take in all the information and really get a sense of what The Dachau Concentration Camp was about.  

Just a little background information on the DCC: it was the first Nazi cc and was one that many other cc resembled and followed. Originally it was established to house political prisoners and opponents of the Nazi regime and later played a role in WWII.  It was a work camp, where inmates were used for slave labor and constructing buildings.  After the war broke out, the purpose of Dachau was a special prison for priests, those who went against the regime, Jews (and more), barbaric medical experimentation's were conducted here as well.   Those who ran the cc systems were trained at Dachau.  Initially, it was designed to hold just under 3,000 prisoners and later expanded to hold 6,000, but by the end of 1945 more then 30,000 people were jammed into Dachau Concentration Camp. 

"Work Makes You Free"

 

An example of one of the barracks where the inmates lived.

The Second Crematorium 

Gas Chambers

The backside of the entry gates.   

I'm so thankful that we made the decision to visit the camp and learn more of the history and background.  It's sad to think that it wasn't that long ago when so many were killed and mistreated.  

The next morning we woke up and headed to Salzburg, Austria for our next adventure.