Our Europe Adventure: Part 1 - Getting There and First Day

We left for our trip on Thursday, October 4th.  Our flight out of Syracuse didn't leave until 4pm so both kids went to school in the morning and Tim and I went to work.  We came home at lunch time and packed up the last few things, then headed to the airport.  Our first flight was from Syracuse to Philadelphia and not surprisingly (because it was going through Philly), it was delayed.  We were reassured that even with the delay we would still make our second flight and after I called USAir and found out that there were NO other options, we just crossed our fingers.  We landed in Philadelphia in the F-terminal and RAN to the A-terminal.  Ran while pushing two strollers, holding four backpacks, two carseats, all of our jackets and two blankets.  We were a sweaty mess when we got to our gate in A-terminal, only to find that the flight was gone.  Doh!

We went to the service desk and they were able to put us on a flight through Frankfurt that left two hours later than our original flight.  We had time to get dinner and the kids played at the gate for a while before we boarded the plane.  Our flight was a bit late in leaving, taking off around 9pm.  We got the kids into their pajamas before the take off and got them settled with their blankets.

Both kids fell asleep almost immediately, in fact I think Leah was sleeping before the plane even took off.  They both slept almost the entire flight, waking up about 45 minutes before we landed, just in time for breakfast.

We landed in Frankfurt and went through customs and back through security without any issues.  Our flight to Munich was just a quick hop, about an hour.  Leah was in a good mood, after having slept all night on the flight.  Mama was a little bit more sleepy!

We landed in Munich, collected our luggage (all there, woohoo!) and headed to the rental car place.  I had booked a rental car online ahead of time but when we got to the counter they pretty much tried to scam us into buying €250 insurance and then said that they don't take Visa cards.  We told them to shove it and went to a different rental counter and got a car.  We got an automatic car, a Ford Mondeo, with navigation and heated seats.  It was nice and worked out well for us because it had a big hatchback for all of our stuff.

By the time we got all of our stuff loaded into the car, the car seats installed and the kids ready to go, it was late in the afternoon.  We had planned to check out Munich for a little while before driving south, but in the end we decided to just head to our hotel for the night.  We drove down to Oberammergau, where we would be staying for three days.

We checked into our B&B, Hotel Garni.  Our room was nice, with a queen size bed and a queen size fold out couch.  We headed out to get some dinner right away, since it was around 5pm and even though we weren't necessarily hungry we were trying to get our bodies on to Germany time.

When you order "chocolate milk" in Germany, this is what you get - hot chocolate!

Cam and Leah thought that was a great surprise.

Despite Leah's stinkface, she actually loved the schnitzel that they had for dinner.

Cameron loved it too.  This was the first of many schnitzel dinners the kids ordered.

After dinner we walked around town to look around and to help us stay up a bit longer.  It is a very cute little town.

Beautiful sky over a beautiful place

 Window shopping - the kids loved looking at all of the great window displays.

This church was near our B&B.  Whenever we wandered too far and got a bit mixed up about where we were in the town, we would just head toward the church and we could find our way.  It also had church bells that tolled on the hour and half hour that the kids really liked.

We headed back to the B&B and got ready for bed, turning out the lights around 8:30.  Tim and I were ready to drop off to sleep immediately, but Cam and Leah had different ideas.  They had slept for a solid 7 or 8 hours on the plane, so they were not particularly sleepy.  And since it felt like 2:30 in the afternoon to their bodies, they were REALLY not tired.  We pretty much told them too bad and spent the next couple of hours telling them to go to sleep.  Eventually they fell asleep and we all slept like rocks that first night!