Time to catch up (Part 2 of 2) (See part 1 below)

After our trip to Frankfurt and the Rhine River, we took another weekend outing and went to the awesome medieval town of Rothenberg ob der Tauber. Rothenberg dates back to the year 950 and has been incredibly well preserved and restored following WWII. There is a wall that stretches around the entire city and most of it includes a walkway where you can get a higher vantage point of the town.

Our hotel. One of the newer buildings in town, it was built in 1927.
Holly and Josh on our walk around the top of the city wall.
We visited the Crime Museum a.k.a. the Torture Museum
I have been told that Josh and I either accused of committing sexual sin or dirtying the environment. A couple of trouble makers if you ask me.
The Mask of Shame. I think this Torture, eh, I mean Criminal museum had some great ideas for dissuading criminals. Make someone walk around in this for a while and they'll think twice before committing that crime again.
Holly and the kids in the town square.
Super Josh and Maggie having a blast walking around the city wall.
A typical street in Rothenberg
Here are a couple of my "artistic" attempts

The weekend after our trip to Rothenberg was another three-day weekend and so we decided to fly down to Sardinia, Italy with a couple of friends from work to enjoy some R & R at the beach.

Josh and Maggie loved burying Mom in the sand.
Josh also loved being turned into Sharkman!

With our friends enjoying a delicious Italian dinner overlooking the harbor.

Here's the harbor at night
And here it is at dusk

It was a great trip and we enjoyed getting to know our new friends. As you can tell, we've been busy having a lot of fun here in Germany. I promise, I do work. However, we had four three-day weekends in a row and we tried to take advantage of them. Arrivederci!

Time to catch up (Part 1 of 2)

So it has been a whirlwind couple of months (not like the previous ones were any less so) and we have totally neglected our blogging audience. So here goes:

Frankfurt Castle and Rhine River Cruise

After moving into our house (see last entry) we decided to get out and see a little bit of Germany. Our first real outing was to go up to Frankfurt on a Friday evening to see a nearby castle, stay the night with my Dad and Julie and then wake up Saturday to take a Rhine River cruise with my dad, Julie, and Grandma Haycock. The kids loved being on the boat and seeing the other boats and castles. We probably saw a dozen or so castles during a couple hour cruise down the river. Here are some of the highlights from the weekend.

Josh was excited to meet his first "real" knights. Notice that Josh dressed up appropriately for the occasion.

Sir Joshua (officially knighted at the castle) and his best buddy, Grandpa.

Some of the beautiful scenery from our cruise:





Here are some bonus pics from our "cruise":



At the end of the cruise we arrived in the village of St. Goar where we took a tour of the amazing Rheinfels Castle. Josh, as usual, was the biggest fan of the castle. He and Grandpa spent most of their time exploring all the nooks and crannies of the castle in search of dragons. Fortunately for us, all the dragons they found were already locked up behind closed door. The first few pictures are of the train/shuttle ride up the mountain to the castle.