Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

With Colin and Craig both starting their 2 week Christmas vacations, we decided to go to Bavaria. We left on Friday to drive to Rothenburg ob der Tauber for the night and to see the Christmas Market. The five and a half hour drive ended up taking over nine hours! During our drive, it started snowing and the tempurature dropped to 13 degrees. Our windsheild wiper froze and it made it very difficult to drive. Overnight the tempurature dropped even more and was 5 degrees when we head out to see the Christmas market. It was so cold and we had to keep going into stores just to warm up. That afternoon, we drove into Bavaria to an apartment on a farm that we had rented for the next five nights.
We spent the next day on the farm because our car wouldn't start because it was too cold. The following day we drove down to Oberstdorf, the town Craig stayed during his exchange 20 years ago. A day later, friends of ours from Antwerp arrived and they watched the kids so we couple go see Neuschwanstein and Honenschwangau castles. We all met up later at the Kemptem Christmas Market then for dinner.

On our way home, we drove through Dettingen, the town where my grandmother grew up.We arrived back in Antwerp on Christmas Eve and with just enough time to prepare for Santa and everyone was very happy when we saw that he had left lots of gifts under the tree the next morning. Colin got the Playmobile Castle he asked for and Chloe got a stroller for her dollies along with lots of other goodies. We spent the day inside because it rained the entire day.

On the 29th, we were visited by the Hickeys on their way to London from Paris. It is always nice to have visitors and wished they had stayed more than one night.

On New Years, we were invited over to our friends Amelia and Rajat's to celebrate. They live around the corner along the river and have the perfect view for the fireworks.
Happy New Year!!