Heather's Visit

In May Heather came to visit us in Germany! It had been 4 years since she was last in Germany visiting Kurt, so we were excited to show her around the Eifel and Mosel regions. Her timing couldn't have been better with all that was going on. We enjoyed her company, traveled and visited some new places and ate great food.

Day 1
We picked up Heather at the Brussels International Airport. We were originally driving to the wrong airport in Belgium thanks to Tom Tom, but we figured it out. After picking her up we explored downtown Brussels. We forgot our camera at the house and Heather left hers in the car, so no pictures. Here is a list of the places we went, you can google them to see pics.

Hotel de Ville (Town Hall)
Maison du Roi (House of the King)
Grand-Place (Market Place)
Eglise Saint-Nicolas (Saint Nicolas Church)
Bourse (Stock Exchange)
Palais des Nations (Palace of the Nation)
Parc de Bruxelles
Palais Royal (Royal Palace)
Palais de Justice (Law Courts) the largest monument in Europe
Cathedrale Saints Michel et Gudule (Cathedral)
Eglise Saint-Catherine (Saint Catherine Church)

Day 2
Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial - absolutely beautiful

I have been dreaming about tulips! I couldn't wait for Heather to get here so we could go to the Keukenhof palace in Holland. Both Heather and I were so excited (and Meg jealous). After a 4 hour drive we finally arrived, only to find out we were too late. The garden wasn't closed, but we were too late to see the tulips by at least a week or so. We didn't see a single tulip until we were at least 15 minutes into the park. Those that we did see were already dead or dying. So disappointing. We finally saw a few, but we didn't get the awe and amazement we were expecting.

The Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial

Keukenhof:

Day 3
We decided to play it easy on Friday. Brian smoked 3 briskets all day while Heather and I played in Bitburg. That evening our friends Jordan and Sarah joined us for dinner (on the new table). It was a relaxing day followed by good food, yum.

Day 4
I had heard about a "small" bazaar in Geilenkirchen. I thought Heather would enjoy seeing vendors from all around. The bazaars here are GREAT! When my friend said "small" she was over exaggerated. It was minuscule. It was in the school gym on a NATO base. The bazaars here are 2 or 3 hangers. Big difference. Needless to say, we were once again disappointed. We didn't stay long and didn't buy anything.

From Geilenkirchen we drove to Koln. Brian loves the Dom at Koln and couldn't wait to show Heather. We viewed the Dom just in time, because as we were leaving they were closing the doors for a service. We walked around downtown for a bit and grabbed some lunch. Brian and Heather returned to the Dom to walk up the 507 stairs to the top, while I went shopping!

For pictures of Koln go to our old blog (http://courtberlak.blogspot.com).

Day 5
Happy Mosel - for 1 day the roads on both side of the Mosel river are closed to cars and open only to pedestrians and bikes. We rented bikes from the Outdoor Recreation Center on base and biked with some friends to the Mosel. We made the mistake of starting in Wittlich 20 km away from the Mosel. We biked down to Bernkastle enjoying brats and wine along the way. We rested in Bernkastle a bit, enjoyed more wine, crepes, and swank steaks before we biked along the Mosel river. We returned to Bernkastle only to find out we couldn't return to Wittlich by train. We had to bike an additional 20 km back to the car. All in all we probably biked 50 - 60 km. Needless to say were are very sore still and sitting is a task.

For pictures see the Happy Mosel post.