We started out visiting Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau castles.
It's quite the hike up to the castle. Avery always has to make things interesting by veering off the pathway.....and she is really into having her picture taken so she is always asking for me to take one....which is why you probably will see her in most pictures.
We grabbed some German pastries on the way.
Then we headed to Garmisch to check into the home we would be renting for the next several days.
The next day we drove into Austria and hiked to the Highline 179 Bridge. This bridge is 114 meters high and 406 meters long. Said to be the longest pedestrian suspension bridge in the world. I am afraid of heights so this was quite scary! The girls and I wanted to turn around halfway in, but Derek wouldn't let us! I'm glad he didn't. It was neat to push through that fear and feel that adrenaline rush!! I'm just grateful it was so foggy that day! Had it been a clear day and I could actually see where I was going...it might have been a different story. :)
The hike up
Then spent the late afternoon/evening walking around the Garmisch area and had some weiner schnitzel.
The next day was kinda rainy so we took it easy. Ended up going to another of Mad King Ludwig's palaces, Linderhof.
We found a somewhat dry place to have our picnic lunch.
And had this amazing view
That afternoon we drove onto Edelweiss (a military resort) and got info for snowboarding/skiing. The kids were all for doing it so we signed the girls up for skiing lessons and got everyone's rentals. Then the kids swam in the pool and we had a wonderful dinner buffet.
The next day we set out on our skiing/snowboarding adventure. It was, by far, the kids favorite day of the trip! They wanted to do it every day after that and are still talking about it. Avery fell in love with skiing and Blake thought he was cool stuff snowboarding. They all really enjoyed the sledding!
We went skiing/boarding on the highest peak in Germany.....Zugspitze. What a place to have your first experience!!
High Above the clouds
We actually had to get on another cable car at this point and go down some to the slopes. Once we got down there the clouds were blocking the sun and it was so cloudy and foggy we couldn't see much of anything!
This is the look I get when I tell him it's time to take a break.
Sledding fun
I can't tell you how many times she would start making the climb up and let go of her sled.....only to have to start all over again.
The girls getting in one more run before we started our journey home.
Then, of course, Derek had to get in one more run.......and this is when we realized that we were completely wasted.....tired, hot, hungry and very burnt. The sun came out shortly after lunch time and we hadn't really even noticed because everyone was having such a great time. Yeah, we later find out that we are all completely fried.
That night all of the kids slept with cold towels on their face. The next morning though, Blake was had a large blister forming. :( Because of that, we got a slow start to our day. We did some research on what we should do. There wasn't much other than trying to make sure it stayed intact for as long as possible. We checked out of our house and made our way towards our next destination in Austria. The plan for the day was a salt mine tour, a hike around the lake and then a hike to the meadow where the famous scene in The Sound of Music was filmed. The salt mine tour was first and the easiest choice as it was underground.....which meant being out of the sun! There were no pictures allowed on this particular tour, but I was able to snap one beforehand. We all had to dress up in these suits. The kids enjoyed the tour so much! We were the only ones on it along with one other couple which made it even better. There is a cart/train ride, a couple of awesome slides, light shows and a cool boat ride on this tour. We all had audio guides as the tour was all in German. The kids actually like having the audio guides.
We then had lunch and by the end of lunch Blake had another large blister forming. :( We decided to skip the lake but still wanted to find that meadow. The girls were really excited about it as The Sound of Music is one of their favorite movies. We even watched the movie the night before.....and they had been singing the song all day thus far. We tried hard, but with very limited directions we just could not find the meadow. At this point, we were like any meadow will do......though it just wasn't the same. And clearly they were done by this point.
We eventually made it to our hotel/resort. The kids were so excited as we had TWO connecting rooms. Derek, Blake and I shared a room and Allie and Avery had a room. They loved that! They felt very independent. They slept with cold towels on their faces again that night. Blake had done such a good job not touching his blisters. They were still intact the next morning, but while we were getting ready and he was watching his German cartoons he mindlessly started messing with them and popped them! After we got ready our first stop was to get sunscreen (which the little bottle ended up costing 20 euro!) and hats. When we stopped in at the pharmacy the pharmacist was insisting that Blake needed to be seen. I had already talked to my cousin several times by this point and she assured me that he was fine as long as he wasn't running a fever, which he wasn't. We had the sun essentials now so we headed out for our day adventure. We did a short hike that was well covered by the trees.
Then on our walk back the girls spotted something magnificent. Before the trip we had just read the book, The BFG, together. It was such a fun book. We all really enjoyed it and it was still fresh in our memory. The book is about a giant. The Big Friendly Giant, and he is the one that is actually telling the story......and they are certain that this was the pencil that he used to write it! :) ;)
After our hiking exploration we decided to explore a castle. Hohenwerfen.
She didn't want me to get a picture of the Men's bathroom sign.
The next day was a day in BEAUTIFUL Hallstatt, Austria. Probably MY favorite day.
The next day was rainy so we decided to go tour another salt mine. This one allowed photos!
We crossed the Germany/Austria border while underground
We ended the day in Salzburg after the weather had cleared up.
The last day we drove to a place we just happened upon as we were searching for a place to eat one night. There are two St. Johann's in Austria. We were staying in one of them. When we searched for a place to eat one of the first places that popped up was Huber Brau. We were like, we HAVE to go there! Well, it ended up being in the other St. Johann. So for our last day we mapped out a different route (it only added 20 minutes) so we could stop here. So glad we did! Food was phenomenal and we got some cool little souvenirs.
It was a scenic drive......we saw this on the way.
Then we stopped back off in Garmisch to try to do a hike that we didn't get to before......and it was closed. :(
Great trip!!
