Thanksgiving - Rothenburg

So during this Thanksgiving, we wanted to take David to Rothenburg since he had never been there.  AJ really wanted to take him on the night watchman's tour and Michael hasn't been on it yet either. 

We stayed in the same place that my parents and I did the last time we were here.  Only we were much higher this time.  This is the view from our window in both directions.

You can see David up in the window.  It was quite a hike up to our room, but it was fun to be up so high!

The boys heading down the streets of Rothenburg!

We decided that David needed to have some ice cream at the same restaurant as we did the last time, and what is a vacation without ice cream?!?

Michael's first ice cream ended up being a lemon instead of vanilla, so we bought him one scoop of vanilla to go.

I like this church, it looks like the building is watching you!

Last time we were here this building, the Ratstrinkstube (Councillor's Tavern) was under construction.  It looks great!  The facade of the building illustrates the legend of the Master Draught from 1631.  At the behest of Count Tilly, Mayor Nusch drank 3 1/4 liters of Franconian wine in a single gulp, thus saving Rothenburg from destruction.

In the basement of a medieval store they had this set up.  I love finding hidden treasures!

Michael ready to go to battle!

Michael and the big nutcracker outside the famous Kathy Wohlfahrt store.

They had some cute mechanical toys running around this little town.

It is a HUGE store!!  They sure do decorate it up pretty!

Michael and AJ in front of the Kathy Wholfarht car.

It is starting to get dark and look how beautiful the town looks!!!

They are sooooo cute!!!  Look at those smiles!!!  We decided to have Chinese as our Thanksgiving dinner this year.  :-)

Check out the moon and the clouds!!  Really cool!!!

The boys with the Night watchman!  This was a different one than two years ago.

He started out with a great tale!!  I loved that his voice was loud and could be heard because there were A LOT of people there that night!

Just like last time, AJ wanted to be right up front and he took Michael with him this time!

A view of one of the main streets.

This is the one house in Rothenburg that has had the same family living in it for over 400 years.  How would you like to be the one to sell it.

This is the main entrance into the town.  After they rang the bell they had an hour to get back into the walls.  If you didn't make it,  you had to pay over 6 months of your salary to get into the walls.   The tour was quite a bit different, but it was still really good and everybody thoroughly enjoyed it!

My boys heading back to our place for the evening!!  It was a great afternoon and a good start to our Thanksgiving vacation!  I really do love this little town, it is quiet and peaceful especially after 5 pm when all the day trippers are gone.

Award assembly

Now that AJ is in fourth grade he actually gets letter grades for the first time.  At the end of every quarter they have an awards ceremony for those in 4th and 5th grade who get good grades.  There are three levels, bronze, silver and gold.

To open it up the principal read them a book about school and what might happen during the school year.

AJ did such a fantastic job during the first quarter, he had all As!!  He received the top award which was gold!!!

All smiles up there with his fellow classmates that also received straight As!!!  What is a little funny, he is standing on the floor of the stage so he would be the same height as the rest of the kids.  They are all up on a riser.

I asked if I could get a picture of the two of them and this is what I get.  LOL  ;-)  I can't take them anywhere.

 That is better!!  I love to see their smiling faces!!!!

We are so proud of AJ and all the hard work he is putting into school!  He kept up straight As with having 3 after school clubs, karate, scouts and hip hop lessons.  He is an amazing kid!!!  Michael also did FANTASTIC his first quarter as well!!  The teacher had nothing but compliments about him.  He doesn't get letter grades yet, but he had top notch marks as well!!!

Scouts

We had to leave early on Sunday because the boys had their first pack meeting of the year back in Vogelweh.

The webelos were doing the opening and closing ceremonies for the meeting.  AJ walked in the US flag.

The wolves getting ready for their big skit!!  They were so excited to put it on for the pack.

The boys do a great job with doing the ceremony part of the meeting!

Now it is Michael's turn to do their skit!!  David had to take the place of a scout who wasn't able to make it.  They all did a wonderful job!!!

Next was the awards part.  They built a fake fire and had "foil" meals, aka achievements and awards, to hand out to the kids.

David handing out the awards.  They pretended they were really hot and the kids had a ball!!!

Next was the webelos turn - AJ missed catching his, probably because it was too hot and he didn't want to burn his hands.  ;-)

AJ was the one reading for the closing ceremony.  The pack meeting was great!  It was fun, interactive and not long!!!  All good things since we had to unpack and get ready for school and work the next day.

On Monday, AJ had a go see it to the emergency room.   They were learning about all kinds of injuries and how to take care of each other.  This gal did such a great job!!!

She was teaching them how to do the Heimlich maneuver.  Michael trying it out, thankfully only pretending.

Next she taught them how to do it if the person was lying on the ground.  Michael did a pretty good job!

AJ was working hard and doing a great job!!!

After that they headed over to one of the rooms to see how other parts of the hospital works.  The doctor was fantastic as well, a scout leader for another pack, and let the boys ask all sorts of questions.  It really was a very informative trip that we had there!!  I was glad that Michael was able to tag along because both boys learned a lot from this trip!!  I do love scouts and all they have to do and learn!

Bad Neuenahr-Aurweiler

On Friday November 13th we headed over to our friend's Kay and Petra's house.  We didn't get there till late on Friday night, but it was great catching up with them!!!  On Saturday, Petra took us on a little tour around her area.  First we headed to Bad Neuenahr-Aurweiler.

I always wondered why there were so many towns in Germany with Bad in front of the town name.  Petra finally cleared it up for me.  She said that if the town has minerals rich waters and in the olden days nobility came to these towns for the healing property of the waters.  The water has to be tested and found good enough before they get Bad in front of their town name.

This town is a walled city, a little like Rothenberg.  They began construction on the walls in 1250, at least a 1000 years after the town was first documented, and completed 10 years after.   During World War II, 126 houses were destroyed by the allied bombs. 

I have never seen a yellow church before in Germany.  I think it is cool and different!!!

Checking out the little stream in the town.  There was a water wheel on the other side of the grate.  It wasn't working while we were there.

The boys liked this water grass and there was a lot of it!!!

It is such a beautiful, peaceful, quaint town!!!  I really enjoyed walking around and looking at the town!

Michael and AJ heading up to the walls of this town.  Like I said it looks a lot like Rothenburg with the walls, but the town has a whole different feel to it.  I like them both!

AJ checking out the wall.  This shows you the height of the walls, I don't think that they were very tall when they built the walls around the city.

 

Looking out beyond the walls you can see a lot of vineyards!!!    This town is located in the Ahr wine region.  It is one of the smaller regions in Germany that primarily produces red wines, and red grape varieties account for 86% of the vineyard area, which is more than in any other German wine region.  Due to the limited production, and the current high demand for domestic red wines in Germany, Ahr wines are almost never seen on the export market.

Isn't the town just so quaint and beautiful!!!  I loved it!!!

 After that we headed to a famous bridge from WWII, Bridge at Remagen.  The bridge  was built 1916-1918 and gained fame as the American troops were able to cross the last remaining bridge on the Rhine in 1945.

When an advance detachment of the US 9th Armored Division reached the Rhine at Remagen on March 7th, 1945 and found the Americans found the Bridge still intact. General Dwight D. Eisenhower is quoted as having said the Bridge was worth its weight in gold - Hitler, furious, suspected sabotage and had five of his officers sentenced to death by a kangaroo court.  Ten days later, the bridge collapsed, heavily damaged as a result of numerous attempts to destroy it by artillery, bombs and rockets and killed more than 30 US servicemen.

AJ standing in front of the towers that were left.

Behind Michael is one side of the rivers towers - these towers host a museum about the bridge and POW camp nearby.  We were a little short on time so we weren't able to go into the museum.

 

David up checking all the different plaques on the walls.

As you can see the 99th was the first to cross the the Rhine.  The soldiers were glad to be able to cross it with dry boots!

The boys sure do LOVE messing with their dad!!!

I might have said something like AJ needs to go for a swim, that maybe helped instigate it, maybe not.  LOL  Michael was trying to help get his brother down.

 

But to no avail.  Thankfully David changed his mind and AJ remained dry for another day.  :-)  After that Petra took us to an outlet store for Haribro and it was AWESOME!!!!   There was so much candy that I think I had a sugar rush just from smelling all the candy.  We did walk out with a lot more candy than I had planned, but it has all been pretty yummy!!!!