The boys thought this was such a cool bike and wondering how you ever could get up on it.
This was neat, the kids had to push and old rail car to and from, the wheels weren't really round and the tracks were made out of wood so it took quite a lot for them to push it back and forth. You can see all five of the kids working really hard here.
This is where the old trains started from the 1800s. They did it in chronological order from oldest to newest and there were a ton of them!! And all full size, there had to be around 40 or so trains there.
David couldn't help himself on this one - it is BFE!!
The kids - Gracie was sure out numbered by boys, but she was right in there with them the whole time. She wasn't being left behind at all!
They even let you go under the trains to check them out and they still had old oil on the gears.
I love this pose!!! My boys on the roundhouse. They had two of these in the museum.
Here they showed different kind of train tickets with them stamped - it was neat to look at them and check out the different countries.
The boys decided they wanted to try and push this train - it didn't budge an inch :-)
Here was a hands on part where they could mess with the dials, switches, etc. to their hearts content. I gave Gracie a little boost to reach the wheel and drive the train.
Here is one of the old official Nazi trains they had on exhibit.
This had to be one of the saddest ones there, it is an old car from when they took the Jews to the concentration camp. We were all a little surprised that they let people walk in and didn't have it roped off. It was sad to think about all the horror that went on in this one boxcar, let alone the hundreds of them that they had.
After all the trains that we saw, we headed outside to see what was there. We found a really cool old windmill or two.
The family :-)
I think they found a cool bug here, the boys were checking it out.
I thought this was a great way to use old machinery, it looks great as decoration! Then we headed back inside to see what else was in there. We found the area where all the ships were. They had some model ships that were absolutely amazing!!!
This one was made out of Lego's - I know you can't see it really well, but there are probably at least a hundred figures on it also.
This was one of Michael's favorites and David's.
This one was made out of match sticks - so cool
Here they had one set up where they could raise and lower the masts and off to the right they had different knots that they could try tying. They really had a great time with this. That is one great thing, they had so many hands on things for the kids to do. They liked looking at some of the stuff, but LOVED touching and doing.
This was a full size Viking ship I think - this shows how big this area was alone and this was just a small area of the museum.
Here is where they could mess around with boat knobs and such - great they had so many levels and knobs they could turn!
Here is a submarine that had seen better days
I was trying to get the scope of how many boats they had in there, this was about a quarter of them you can see Michael and David way in the back of this picture.
This was called a flag ship. It was the Command ship, on which the supreme commander of a fleet or squadron has his flag as a sign of his presence.
They had a working periscope in there too.
It was actually kind of neat, you walked into the "submarine" and it made it look like you were going down under water and then back up again in the portals.
This one is for you Mary!!! David saw it and thought of you right away!!! :-)
We then moved onto airplanes. They had over 24 full size airplanes some in great conditions, others didn't survive the crash.
They had different types of flying machines, not just airplanes, but hot air balloons, etc.
They had a lot of history in there about WWII, they had a whole half a floor that followed four different individuals in the high ranking military. They didn't have everything translated to English, but I would say at least 80% of it was, which was really great for us.
Here are some old time weapons. By this point we were all pretty much done, we had seen only about 70% of the museum, but it was getting close to dinner time and a much needed break. :-)
On our way back to the car we saw this sign up on a bridge and had to be the American tourists and stopped to take pictures. Here is the four of us behind the sign.
Then Victor had a great idea to sit on top of it, it was a long way down but luckily there was water underneath us in case we fell. :-) But we all survived yet another adventure!
Eating dinner together as a family! You can tell it is spaghetti night because the kids don't have shirts on to keep the shirts clean. :-) After dinner we wanted to go check out a few other places on our list. The first stop we made was to checkpoint Charlie.
These guys stand there most of the day and you can pay them to take pictures with them. We decided that we were good not doing that.
So they left pretty soon after we arrived there and we took our own pictures in front of Checkpoint Charlie. I am not sure why I thought it would be something bigger, but I guess I did.
There was traffic that goes on both sides of it, it is a main street. Michael tried to get run over by running across the road, luckily there weren't any cars coming at that time.
This sign is from when it was still operational.
All around the city you will see this that shows you where the Berlin wall was. It is truly amazing to think about the city being cut in half and there such a difference from one side to the other.
We were told that the Brandenburg Gate at night lit up is beautiful and it was!!! We actually had a night without rain to go and see it. We were very excited!!!
It was just starting to get dark as we approached it.
A close up view of the statue on top. Jay-z actually did a concert on top of the gate a few years ago. That would have been pretty neat to see!
The girls!!! Having such a great time!!!
My honey and me!!! Such a beautiful picture!!
After that we walked a little further down, we saw this when we drove in that night. The first night we couldn't drive that way because of all the roller bladders and runners. We found out that this is the Soviet's Memorial from those that fought against Germany during WWII. The memorial's plaques name 35 of the more than 2000 fallen soldiers that were buried here.
The site of the Soviet Army chose for its memorial had a great symbolic value. Adolf Hitler and Albert Speer had planned to have their "east/west axis" (which included Charlotten burger Chaussee now known as Strasse des 17, Juni) intersect here with the "north/south axis." The intersection, along with other planned buildings, was to form the heart of the National Socialist Capital. It was kind of like the tomb of the unknown solider. For many years they had Russian soldiers standing guard over it. Soviet soldiers maintained a guard of honor here until the memorial was taken over by the Federal Republic of Germany in 1990.
The kids thought the tank was really neat!!! Of course so did I!
We had a little visitor while we were there, a little fox. We waited patiently until he was gone. Then we started our walk back to the cars.
As we passed through the gate again, there was a saxophone player, it was such a wonderful sound, it echoed in the still night and I can't really explain the feeling I had sitting there listening to him at this important place in history. It was a great end to another wonderful day!!!!
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