Rottenberg Germany April 13-14, 2010

It has truly been a while since we have taken any trips anywhere. As most of you know, Thom is deployed. We found out before Christmas. Between the cold, rainy and yucky weather, and Thom's preparing for his year deployment, the trips have come to a screeching halt. I have decided that I can either sit around and wait for the year to be done, or I can venture out some and make the time pass quicker with taking small little trips with the kids. Even though after this first trip, I realized it is not as much fun without Thom, it made this week go by very fast. I have some more day trips planned for us for the summer. I don't think I am brave enough to do anything extravagent...and besides we need to save those trips for Thom...it's only fair...and it's not as much fun without him.

So this first "solo" trip was to Rottenberg. Many of our friends have raved about this town...it is a Medieval town with a lot of shopping. It was 2 1/2 hours away. I have a friend, Kitty who's husband is also deployed and she has 2 boys. We decided that we would go together (she was a huge help). We also invited Father Mike on this adventure. Because it was 2 1/2 hours away, and we thought there was going to be a lot to do, we ended up making hotel reservations at Gasthof Butz (highly recommended by us). Here are pictures from our hotel...Matthew was rather impressed~ can't you tell?

Our Gasthaus was on the inside of the town. Rottenberg is surrounded by a wall, and we were lucky enough to have our hotel inside...saving time and money on parking. Here are some pictures of the town and wall.

Our first stop (after eatting a packed lunch of brotchen and pretzel sticks) was Saint Jacob's church. It is a protestant church, and very big. It is one of the biggest and oldest in Rottenberg. We were suprised that we had to pay in order to come in and take a look. As a matter of fact we had to pay for every church that we visited...so we only visited one. At Saint Jacob's there is a relic of the precious blood of Jesus Christ. We were told that Rottenberg use to be a big pilgrimage site. I was amazed that a protestant chuch actually had the blood of Christ displayed...I thought only us Catholics who displayed relics. Correct me if I am wrong..and this is not intended to put any of my protestant friends down.











After we left the church, we headed for the Rathaus (court house) and checked on the times and price of the Nightwatchman tour. It was going to be at 8pm, and we were told that we definitely had to go and check it out. So we decided to walk around the town some and see what other touristy sites we could find. We stopped by a shop and I got some Rottenberg pottery coffee cups that say Mama and Papa on it...pretty cute. We also got our magnet and postcards. There were 3 Kathie Wolfhart Christmas stores in this small town...right across the street from each other...how funny!! We didn't even go inside, b/c it is not a kid friendly store, and neither Kitty or I really needed anything in there. There wasn't much else to shop for, so we continued on looking around. We roamed the streets and browsed. We came to the town gardens, and it was big and beautiful..and had a great view.

We were told that while in Rottenberg you have to try a Schneeball. Some of our friends said it was good, others said it was bad...but either way you have to try one. A Schneeball is a fried ball covered in powdered sugar...sounds good enough. But boy oh boy..it is not that good at all. But that is a checkmark on our list of tourist things to do!!


We found in the tour guide that there was a criminal museum...we thought we would check it out. It was starting to rain, so it was perfect timing to get inside. It was interesting, and the kids had a lot of questions. We went to the criminal museum in Amsterdam, so the kids knew about some of the "devices" already..but it is still interesting to see how intrigued the kids were.

After that adventure, we thought it would be a good idea to go back to the hotel, and try to rest a bit, since we were going to be out "late" on the tour...late for the kids!! But yeh, that nap didn't happen...what was I thinking??
This is a picture of Saint George's fountain!!

Here are some random pictures of Father Mike and Kitty and the kids!! Emilee really enjoyed holding Father Mike's hand...probably since I was busy pushing the stroller most of the time. Even though I have a picture of Father Mike pushing the stroller one time, since I was feeding Matthew!! What a great man..and such a big help. Thanks Kitty for all your help too!!

We had dinner in our hotel. I had Sauerbraten (German pot roast) and the kids all had bratwurst and french fries. We also all had dessert, since everyone behaved fairly well.

It was finally time to do the tour. I was able to get a picture with the tour guide before I had to leave. Unfortunately it started raining harder, and the 3 little ones were getting really fussy. Kitty graciously volunteered to go on the tour with the 3 older ones, and her kiddos. I took the 3 little ones back to the hotel and put them to bed. I was told that the tour was "cute" and gave some good info about life during medieval times. I head a little bit of the tour before I left, and it definitely seemed to be geared toward kids (for some reason).

The next day was not too filled with things to do. After a typical german breakfast, we checked out of the hotel. We ended up walking the perimeter of the wall. Initially I took the double stroller up the windy steep stairs, but had to end that adventure and come back down because the walkway was too narrow. BUt Kitty took the older kids up top, while I walked along the wall below them with Father Mike.

After eatting lunch, we thought it was time to start heading home. It was my turn to drive with Father Mike...and we had a great conversation...I learned a lot about predertermination, prevenial grace, actual grace and supernatural grace...if anyone want to know!!! It was a nice time...we were able to get out and see more of Germany. We are thankful to be able to go out and travel.

I'll try and post our next trip as soon as I can. This is rather time consuming..and putting pictures on here takes forever!! Thanks again Kitty and Father Mike for "chaperoning"!!!