Moran Family Fun

Traveling Space Available is a really nice military benefit - seven round trip tickets to Europe for $370 is an amazing deal! The only downside is that you're at the mercy of the military. You can only fly when and where the military wants to go so it's important to be flexible. Just because I want to get to Hawaii on Tuesday doesn't mean the military does. Military flights are subject to delays or cancellations so it's best to have a back up plan to get to your destination or find a hotel while you wait. Plus, you can only fly if there are empty seats. Many flights don't take passengers at all and others will fill up with other people before they even get to your name. Or a last minute official duty passenger will need a seat and you'll find yourself bumped from the flight you'd thought you were on. It takes both financial and emotional preparedness to navigate the system and be willing to change your plans at a moment's notice. For us the benefits outw...

Our only Sunday in Germany was the day Natalie woke up with a stomach bug. It was great that it was Sunday so we'd already planned to take a day for nothing but church meetings. Jared took the rest of the girls to church and Natalie and I stayed home. It was the perfect opportunity for me to work on getting our bags organized and try to figure out how we were going to get all the things we'd bought into our suitcases for the flight home. By the time the rest of the family came home from church Natalie was feeling much better and, even better, no one else caught her mystery illness.  The original plan was to start trying to fly back to Maryland on Sunday or Monday but the first available flight wasn't until Tuesday. That meant Monday was wide open for one last Christmas market! We settled on Koblenz, the beautiful city where the Rhein and Mosel Rivers meet. We made our way to the center of town, found parking, and stared wandering in search of the market. The market in ...

Our one and only Saturday in Germany was spent where most of our Saturdays were spent when we lived there - in Kaiserslautern! Even though we'd already visited the Christmas market there we wanted to go again so the littlest girls could go to the Kinderbackerei and make sugar cookies and we wanted to visit Doner King, which is our very favorite Doner place! Another meal of Doner Kebabs brought our tally to three doners in six days. Some days the beauty of Madison surprises me. Even sitting around waiting for a Kebab she looks amazing. We love our red-headed beauty! When we moved to the Kaiserslautern area in 2008 we already knew we loved Doners. The first Doner place we tried was Doner King in Einsiedlerhof. I guess you could say it was love at first bite? They had a little restaurant just outside the base where Jared was working and he would often eat lunch there. In fact, he went to eat at Doner King so often that the owners knew Jared on a first name basis and consi...

If you really want to hear the truth, ask a German. They tend to be direct and to the point so if you ask a German, "Does this look good on me?" be prepared for an honest, blunt opinion - good or bad. They won't say something looks good on you if it doesn't and that can be a little off putting for Americans who are used to small talk and over-politeness. I still remember the time Natalie's Kindergarten teacher told me that Natalie was lazy and, unlike Samantha, didn't work very hard at learning German correctly. This frankness may feel like rudeness to Americans, but it's really not. Germans just tend to be direct and to the point. During our time at the Cochem Christmas market I was the object of this particular cultural quirk. We'd stayed up very late the night before and the little sleep I did get was terrible. You could definitely tell by looking at me that I was tired and because I forgot to bring makeup with me when I packed for our visit wi...

The next stop on our Christmas market adventure was Trier. We love Trier, it's the first German city we explored and it's actually the first Christmas market we ever went to way back in 2000 or 2001. We've been to Trier's Christmas market at least three or four times now and it never disappoints. Next to Kaiserslautern, there's no market we've been to more so Trier was definitely a familiar place. Trier's Porta Nigra, or Black Gate, was built by the Romans in 200 AD. So yeah, Trier's a pretty old place. Just past the Porta Nigra is the main square in town, the cathedral, and the Christmas Market! We arrived at the market just as the sun was starting to set and made our way to the place we always go first in Trier - the Bratkartoffeln stand. The roasted potatoes in Trier are the very best we've tried and they were the perfect warm and filling way to start the night. Of course, we did some of our favorite things to do at Christmas m...

The next day we set out to visit more Christmas markets. We had some pretty basic goals for our time in Germany - eat all the foods we were missing, see as many of our old friends as possible, and go to  Christmas markets that we hadn't been to before. So after a lunch of Doner Kebabs (for those keeping track, that's two doners in three days) we set out for two cities we'd not see before,  Rudesheim and Mainz.  Rudesheim is a little wine making town on the Rhein river and a UNESCO World Heritage Site , which means it's a place with cultural or natural significance. In our limited experience, the World Heritage Sites have all been wonderful places to visit and always end up being our favorite part of any trip - Prague's city center; Salzburg in Austria; Brugge's city center; in Germany the Cathedral in Koln and the Roman monuments in Trier; Florence, Venice, and Cinque Terra in Italy; in Ireland Newgrange Passage Tombs, Giant's Causeway, and Skellig Isla...

This week we've run into people we know as we've been out and about in Germany and generally they ask us the same two questions. Didn't you move back to the States? and Why did you come back to visit? Our answers are, respectively, "Yes" and "For the Christmas markets." It's hard to explain the appeal of Christmas markets. They are beautifully decorated and filled with the sounds, sights, and smells of Christmas. Generally, they're in the oldest part of town so the market itself is often situated on cobblestone streets and surrounded by amazing old buildings. During the day they're just pretty but as the sun goes down it truly becomes magical as the lights glow and the crowds grow. If you want a better idea, this video of Heidelberg's market is filled with scenes typical of many Christmas markets. Our first full day in Germany we set out to visit two markets, Kaiserslautern and Heidelberg. One of the first things we saw as we wal...