Saying Goodbye to Erlangen

I have been meaning to post for a while now but time has been flying. This past week we have been trying to spend as much time with friends and enjoying this beautiful weather as we can. We have had several good bye dinners, sent just about everything to the US, handed over the keys to our flat and moved into a hotel. We have also been enjoying a week of gorgeous weather with temperatures reaching the upper 70's (watch out!). I am hoping that this will make it a little bit easier to transition back to the high temps that awaite us in Charlotte.

Since we have already shed a few tears and spent each day saying goodbye to groups of friends, I will avoid being too sentimental and show our last week in pictures.

Our street

Dinner with friends

Cheering on the Nuremberg Rams....Go Billy. The field is called Zeppelin Field and was used by Hitler for Nazi party rallies. Now it is the home of American football and conerts.

Saying goodbye to more friends over a delicious Bavarian meal.

We LOVED living on this street.

One more look at the park (Schloss garten)

Good bye sweet Erlangen. You will be missed and we will eventually be back to visit.

Showered with Love

This weekend our friends threw us a few parties. The girls had a shower for me while the boys played poker. After the afternoon events we spent the evening at another friends home for a going away party eating BBQ and lots of delicious sides. We felt so loved and celebrated by our friends.

The shower was lovely with games, good food and lots of laughs. I love these girls and I am so excited that several of them will be returning to Charlotte over the next year.



Yummy treats and a picture of Phil and I in Scotland.
The two pregnant ladies.


Enjoying Kelley's incredible berry lemon punch.

The girls busy creating a picture of our little one from magazines.

Opening gifts. Little boy stuff is so cute.

Having guy time.

It was a beautiful day of celebrating and starting to say goodbye. So strange to think that we only have one more weekend left in Germany.

The Rest of Vienna

The following four days were filled with a trip to the oldest zoo in the world, the museum of musik and fun market finds.

Zoo Vienna


My favorite exhibit, the elephants, was by far the most entertaining. I could not get enough of the baby elephant.


Stopping to feed a squirrel


After spending the morning at the zoo we decided to head into the center of Vienna.

As we walked around we were really impressed with all of the beautiful buildings and churches in the area.

After hitting the Haus der Musik, we headed to Naschmarkt, the largest outdoor market in Austria. We had been told that we they had some of the best hummus in town...so that is where we headed first.

We agreed that it was good but not the best that we had tried.

A few pictures of the market




Since we are not ones to give up easily, we picked up a few different types of hummus to sample later that evening. The cilantro hummus was by far the winner.


On Easter morning we found an English speaking church and enjoyed celebrating with people from all over the world.

Once the service was over we walked outside to find that it was snowing. It was beautiful!

After church we went back into town to tour St. Peter's Church.




I was really impressed with the organ.


After seeing the church we walked across town....




Eventually making it to Hundertwasser. Hundertwasser is an apartment complex designed by famous architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser.








For our final morning in Vienna we headed to the fair grounds to see the Vienna Wheel which was erected in 1897.


We played a few games and picked up a little cotton candy before heading to the airport.

Vienna for Easter

Our last holiday in Europe wasa trip to Vienna for Easter weekend. We had a great time and it was a nice end to our adventure over here.

Our first stop was to the Easter market at the Schonnbrun palace.

Me in all my pregnancy glory.


While walking around the market we came across a few festive treats.




Lots and lots of pretzels.


We ended up trying a krapfen pretzel which tasted just like a doughnut.


We also split a plate of prosciutto wrapped cheese with friends.


After the market it was off to explore the palace and grounds. The palace is magnificent and was built in the 1500's. It was also used in the filming of several recent movies.


The gorgeous palace ballroom.


The grounds




And of course a trip to the palace would not be complete without a game of frisbee.


It was a great first day in Vienna.

Family Visit to Coburg

We started out the next morning by walking around Erlangen and then heading to the trainstation. We took the 40 minute train ride into Coburg and arrived around 11am. The weather was perfect(our first warm weekend in 6 months)and we were impressed with Coburg as soon as we got off the train. The buildings are gorgeous as we made away into the center of town.

We walked around the downtown area, explored the market place and then made our way up to a beautiful castle.

Walking up to Callenburg Castle


Vin and Ash at the main entrance.


We are very excited to be in Coburg.


After walking around the castle grounds we decided to break for lunch. I had researched a few lunch options and found Miles and More, a great little Bavarian hole in the wall. We were seated for about a minute when a woman at the next table introduced herself to us. She mentioned that her friend performed tours of Coburg and could give us a short tour for free. 10 minutes later her friend had arrived and we all chatted over lunch. What a great way to get to know a little more about this town.

After our tour we hiked up to Veste Coburg (the Fortress of Coburg). It was a beautiful walk up to the top.


We finally reached the top and explored Veste.


Walking the grounds.


Ash and her horse.


The temperatures had begun to drop so we had a little hot chocolate at the top before heading back down.

After reaching the bottom it was time to walk through town and back to the train station so that we could begin our ride back to Erlangen. I love the way German towns look when the sun goes down.


We grabbed a loaf of Easter bread to enjoy on the train and had a relaxing ride home. It was a wonderful day exploring Coburg together.