Christmas in Germany

How do you describe a 3 week trip in one blog post? Even two? My shortest description of our Christmas trip this year is: cold, white, and full. This December, after months of anticipation, we packed our bags and headed to Germany. Hauzenberg, Germany, to be exact. That's the little village where Tris' sister, Jen, her husband Christian, and their two boys, Tristian and Nathaniel live. Our goal wasn't to see Europe, but to visit with our family, to get to know our nephews better, and to see how our European branch of the family lives. It had been years since we saw each other, but as it goes with ones you love, as soon as we got there it felt like time just melted away. Of course the boys had grown, and to Jen, my own children had been stolen away and replaced by a tall, lanky, young man and a thin, curly-haired thirteen year old with a contagious laugh.

Our journey began and, thankfully, ended uneventfully. The potential for closed airports,

lost luggage and uncooperative weather bypassed us, although when we arrived we heard that many others weren't so lucky. Mostly we stayed around the village, shopped around and drove to outlying shops and areas of interest. One of our local favourites was the museum, which is in a castle overlooking Passau (the nearest city) and 3 rivers, with the main one being the Danube. Another was the main Catholic Church in Passau, where we saw the kinds of ceilings and windows that people from Canada don't actually see without stepping onto an airplane and flying for hours.

We did spend a day in Salzburg, Austria where we went to Mozart's cafe (next to his birthplace) and to a Christkindlmarkt, or an outdoor Christmas market. One other afternoon we drove inside the Czech Republic, where we went to an outdoor market and then went to lunch. It was very interesting to compare the differences between these two places with Germany, although all three were similar in that they were COLD.

One of our favourite family days was when all 8 of us piled onto the train and headed to Munich. This is where Tris was born and it was kind of fun to go and take photos in front of the hospital where it all started for him.

We visited a huge palace (too big to be called a castle) as well, and went into old Munich (Marianplatz). Because of the weather so many things were closed, so our hope is to return in the summertime. However, what other time of the year can you slide on a frozen canal than in the dead of winter??

I think that the best thing that we did, though, was to just hang out in the living room and kitchen, staring out the window at the snowy, white world outside, usually drinking something (tea, coffee or beer were the main choices). At one point all four kids were on the floor in the kitchen, cuddled up in the corner. Not sure why THAT spot, but maybe that's where the sun was shining at the time:) For our family, it was fun to have younger kids around; we'd forgotten how much life 7 and 9 year olds have. Matthew was quite the hero...some mornings the boys would run out of their room and say "where's Matthew??" before even a good morning. They love Abby but unfortunately, she's the "girl cousin" and you know what they say..."birds of a feather..."

Coming back to Indonesia was a sad time for us, because we know that with school and work schedules in the 3 different countries (Germany, Indonesia and Canada) our paths may not

cross in person for a long time. We feel really blessed that we were able to go and stay with Jen and Christian and the boys, and to experience an authentic German Christmas Eve (and we had a Canadian Christmas morning, too!), lots and lots of delicious Bavarian food and drink, and to spend time with our family.

Thanks for reading.

ps. we're unable to post a lot of photos on blogspot, but if you'd like to see more, there's a bunch in my facebook albums.