Birthday Travels

Our youngest child is officially a teenager. When our oldest turned thirteen we were not sure what the teen years would bring us. Thankfully, we really like being parents to teenaged girls. Back in the days when we had five girls under ten random strangers in the grocery store would wish us luck or shake their heads and say things like "Just wait until they're all teenagers" didn't know what they were talking about. Certainly, being the parents of teenaged girls hasn't been all sunshine and rainbows and there have been some moments that have literally brought us to our breaking point, but overall we much prefer parenting older kids to the toddler years.

Every year for Natalie's birthday for the last three years we've taken her on a trip to celebrate her turning one year older. She's totally happy to forgo presents in favor of traveling somewhere and we think that's pretty cool. This year, like last year, she requested to go to Germany to visit Christmas markets. And since Madison was home with us AND is a German major, we brought her along with us! 

Madison, Natalie, and I woke up so early to drive to the airport and fly to Germany. We arrived in Frankfurt late on a Monday morning, got our rental car, and set out in search of markets. Our plan was to go to markets we'd never been to before and first on our list was Landau, a town about an hour southeast of where we used to live. Landau is the birthplace of Thomas Nast who has been called the man who invented Santa Claus thanks to the cartoons he drew that were published in magazines during the last 1800s in America. The market in Landau had a Santa Claus and was exactly the type of market I look for. It was situated in the lovely town square and wasn't too big or too crowded but not so small that we could see it all in ten minutes either. Natalie was happy to see that there was a Kinderbackerei and she had no problem getting in there with the little kids and making cookies. 

That little red box behind Natalie was a place for the kids to drop off their letters to Santa. Natalie wrote a letter and dropped it in and just the other day we received a response in the mail here at home. So sweet. 

Our next stop was the market in Landstuhl. Even though Landstuhl was practically on our doorstep for six years it's a market we never went to while living in Germany. It was just a tiny little market in front of the Stadthalle that did take about ten minutes to check out, but we were surprised to find mugs that said Landstuhl and had a drawing of the town all decked out for Christmas painted on the side. We bought two mugs to add to our collection here at home and then walked back to our car. 

Such a cute little Christmas market!

After the Landstuhl market we to our very favorite Doner restaurant. We've been getting Doner from Doner King since 2008 and we love the owners Turac and his wife Rose. Back in 2008 when Jared would go there for lunch, they'd always ask about the kids and send him home with lollipops for all the girls. They're so kind to us and are always happy to see us when we're back in the area and stop by for our favorite German fast food. We learned some sad news when we arrived - they're retiring and seeing the restaurant and it's going to be a Chinese place. So it was likely the last Doner we'll ever have there and we just felt so sad, especially for Jared because he wasn't with us and didn't know when he had his last Doner there that it would be the last. 

Our next day in Germany we drove north to Bernkastel-Kues which is an absolutely beautiful town surrounded by vineyards on the Mosel River. The town center is filled with winding alleyways and half-timbered houses and it's just so pretty and German and perfect. We got there just as the market was opening for the day so even though it's popular with tourists (several tour buses were parked and unloading people as we were leaving town later that day) it wasn't crowded which is really key for me to enjoy any experience. It seemed like local people and us at the market that day. We were blessed with amazing weather for December! Sunny with temperatures in the mid-50s. We all had certain foods we were hoping to eat while in Germany and the market in Bernkastel-Kues helped Natalie fulfill her wishes of a crepe with Nutella and I had the most delicious Dampfnudel ever with plum filling and vanilla sauce and I maybe need to figure out how to recreate that at home because it was the stuff dreams are made of.

As we were getting ready to wrap up our time in Bernkastel-Kues, we saw a sign that said Zum Schloss (to the castle) and I thought that we definitely should go to the castle. According to the sign, it was only 650 meters away! But it was 650 meters straight up the hillside above the old town and it was a humbling struggle for all of us and we huffed and puffed our way up the steep, steep hill.  The views from the castle were amazing. We could see the town below us, other villages dotted around on the surrounding hillsides, grapevines everywhere, and the Mosel river winding through it all. And let's not forget that the benefit of an all uphill walk to the castle was an all downhill walk back to the town center.

That evening we went to Kaiserslautern's Christmas market, the market that was Natalie's entire motivation for traveling to Germany for her birthday. Four years ago we took a trip to Germany for Christmas markets and we went to the Kaiserslautern market and while we were there we bought Natalie a wooden bow and arrow set that she has loved so much. Sadly all of her arrows have broken and she was just so so hopeful that the stall selling wooden ornaments, nativities, and weapons would be there again so she could replace her arrows. Also, the Kaiserslautern market was the one market we attended every single year while living in Germany and while it's nothing special it feels special to us. So this year we went to Kaiserslautern again and Natalie made a beeline to the spot where we'd found the bow and arrows last time. They were still there! She came home with a bunch of new arrows for her bow. And I was able to check the final food item off my list - Reibekuchen, or potato pancakes with applesauce.  

We also had to get a waffle, because what trip to a market is complete without a sweet treat?

We had an early morning flight home from Germany. It was so super early that we had to wake up to leave from the airport at 2 a.m. but the early wake-up call seemed like a small price to pay for our little slice of Weihnachtszeit.