After our lovely time in Frankfurt with Erik’s cousin Klaus Peter and family we headed to KP’s parents’ house, Dieter and Karen. They live in Birstein, Germany about an hour from Frankfurt. We had a beautiful drive in our faithful Honda Galaxy. The roads were a bit curvy and Erik felt it important to embrace the German idea of drive as fast as you can through the curves. I tried to keep my mouth shut as I was not interested in driving! We were greeted warmly at Dieter and Karen’s with a delicious afternoon cake and coffee. We hadn’t had lunch and the kids thought it especially fun that they were allowed to eat as much cake as they wanted in the middle of the afternoon! It was all so delicious! We filled our bellies and then quickly changed into swimsuits to head to the swimming pool. Before we left for Germany Erik told the kids all about the Birstein pool. Erik had stayed at Dieter and Karen’s as an exchange student in 1997. He enticed all of the kids with the description of a huge waterslide and multiple pools. Let me tell you this pool did not disappoint!  It puts all of our public pools to shame! The only issue was – it was cold and rainy. This didn’t stop the kids but it did stop me! I was so grateful all the kids could swim so that I was not forced into the pool! Eventually even the most stubborn child agreed it was too cold and we made our way back “home.” That evening Dieter cooked us a wonderful meal of sausages and steaks on the grill. Add in fresh cucumbers, bread, tomatoes and cherries – the meal was perfect! Juliette and Samantha even had a taste of Hessische Apfelwein (which was almost entirely 7up)!

The next day we headed out to the Brother’s Grimm Museum. This would be the start of the next leg of our journey, “The Fairy Tale Road.” We were fortunate to use Dieter and Karen’s as a launching pad for this leg of the adventure. After we learned a little bit about the Brothers we headed to Erlebnispark Steinau which you already heard about in our previous post. This ended up as such an adventure that I think we will all remember that day the rest of our lives! That evening Erik spent time catching up with Dieter while the rest of us caught up on some sleep!

Sometimes they pose nicely

Sometimes they don’t!

We woke up the next morning and had some breakfast before saying good-bye to Dieter (Karen needed to go to the hospital for a knee scope so we said good-bye to her the day before). We are so thankful for our time with them. It was like visiting grandparents and I know the we all felt very at home with them. Thank you Dieter and Karen – we would love to have you visit us in Nebraska!

We packed up the trusty Galaxy to the brim and headed out on the “Fairy Tale Road.”