FLASHBACK: Saturday, October 2

We are having such a wonderful holiday. Each morning, we get up whenever the boys get up. This ranges between 5:30am (ugh!) and 7:30am (hurrah!) We then get ready for our day and head downstairs for breakfast in the gorgeous breakfast area of our inn. After that we go back up to the room, gather all our things for the day, and head out in our car to our various destinations. We usually eat lunch on the road and try as best as we can to eat a healthy and light lunch (fresh fruit if we can find it.) Following our adventures for the day, we return to the hotel sometime around nap time (1-3pm) and the boys take naps. Wendi naps as well. JB goes downstairs and reads with a beer or a glass of wine in freedom that no responsibility brings. After about 90 minutes, positions are switched. JB goes upstairs and reads or naps and Wendi goes downstairs to email, work on blogs, or practice her Turkish. Sometimes, JB will even leave an area set up for her with some water or the computer. (He's an awesome guy by the way!) After nap time, we get ready for dinner. Most nights this is at the restaurant of our hotel since the food is AMAZING! We then return upstairs for downtime and bed. While the boys sleep in their cribs provided by the hotel, we read or get on the computer and then fall asleep not to far behind them. It's been glorious! We especially love staying in one spot for the entire week.

Today was a new set of adventures that included two new countries (Luxembourg, France) for the boys and one new country for us (Luxembourg)! You could cross all three borders without any passports or stops so we often weren't sure which country we were in. They seemed to speak French in Luxembourg for the most part although Deutsche (German), French, and English were a bit interchangeable. Most people speak a bit of all languages and can therefore answer our questions and help guide us on our journey.

The English tour of the Beaufort Castle in Luxembourg was self-guided. They gave us an English handout and we guided ourselves. This worked wonderfully for the boys. They loved climbing and romping amidst the various steps and bridges without having to be quiet and stand still while someone mumbled on about things that they couldn't understand.

Things here in Europe are so different from the U.S. Where everything would be "don't touch", in the U.S., they don't seem to mind if you touch (and climb) to your heart's content. Of course, there is also not much safety taken into account. So either JB or myself would go into a room first and try to ascertain where the hazards were for the boys. Big drops, cliffs, holes, that sort of thing. Then we'd let the boys and the other parents follow-in and keep them away from that section. I've been told that these old ruins and the hazards that they can bring will be the name of the game in our travels around Turkey and surrounding regions.

The weather to this point has been wet and cool. It's in the 60's each day. While the mud has meant more dirty clothes, we've enjoyed the cooler temperatures after our sweat-filled-adventures in Turkey.

Here are some pictures from our visit to the castle (which dates back to the 9th century):

This was the view after climbing an incredibly windy staircase for an incredibly long time. The boys did a great job going up but we carried them down.

Following our visit to the castle, we decided to park in downtown Luxembourg and experience a bit of the culture. We happened upon some sort of outdoor festival. We still aren't sure what it was in regards to as everything was in French. We gathered something with shoes and the handicapped as we recognized that word on t-shirts and signs and they were collecting shoes in a bin. But despite our ignorance as to why we were there, we did get balloons, fresh fruit at an expensive but amazing market, and brats and beer (beer for JB, not me.) There was an entertaining gospel choir performing that was singing a lot of songs we were familiar with even though the words were in French.(Except for the part where they sang, "Let my people go" in English.

Isaac (and Elijah) could not comprehend that they had to have the balloon tied to them if they wanted to play with it. I told JB we should just let the balloon float away so they understood but he didn't think that lesson was a good one to teach as we pushed through naps. At another point, Elijah decided that the balloon he had was totally the wrong one and that he needed a different one. He sat down on the ground and just wept. It was quite a sad sight. It's quite interesting though that despite the fact that we don't speak the same language, people can still understand "kid talk." They knew why he was throwing a fit and cast us understanding glances. One afternoon while the boys were playing on the favorite toy horse outside our inn, a group of old German folks who spoke no English got a real kick out of watching their poor attempt at sharing. They didn't know what we were saying to them or what the boys were saying to us or each other, but they could totally understand that sharing was not a welcome activity. When Isaac went to get off the horse, only reclaiming his rights when Elijah wanted it, the whole table errupted in laughter.

I ate the best apricots ever sitting here! The apricots we get in America (and even Turkey) are a bit hard and just sort of "okay" to me. But these were amazing. I could have eaten them all if Isaac didn't want some too. We also had beautiful blueberries, rasberries, grapes (with a bit of lemon flavor) as well.

This little fountain was very pretty. It had a "Rome" feeling to it. Off to my right side is a little old woman squatting down and feeding birds. Elijah hasn't seen her yet. But once he does, he'll be determined to try to "pet" the birds which will cause them to fly away, much to the old woman's disappointment. I, therefore, decided to pick him up and take him from the birds so she could enjoy feeding them. With no nap yet and pushing 3pm, this resulted in incredible hysterics and tears made better only by the promise that we would let them play with the balloons once we reached the car.

Isaac giving me an impromptu kiss! Love my boys!

We decided to skip naps today and let the boys sleep on the ride home. Elijah slept almost the entire way. Isaac played with his balloon almost the entire way but finally took a short snooze when I managed to take the balloon from him without breaking his heart. You could tell he was exhausted but just not wanting to stop his fun.

When we got back to our hotel, we opted for a light lunch at a neighboring restaurant and an early bed night for the boys. It was a delightful day. They were incredibly well-behaved, other than a few dark moments, and we so enjoyed the beauty of these three countries.