A Last Hurrah Before School Starts

We have wanted to visit Northern Germany since we moved here three years ago.  A lot of Germans visit the North Sea or the Baltic Sea during their summer holidays and we wanted to know what all the fuss was about.  We thought the weekend before school started we would head up and spend a few days on the beach.  I guess Germans have thicker blood than us wimpy Americans...the water in Northern Germany is not exactly warm and we spent three days wondering why we hadn't spent 6 hours in the car heading South (toward warm and sunny Italy) instead of North!  With this said we did have a fun trip and the bonus part was we got to spend the entire time with Becky Platt and her boys (seriously DON'T know how she puts up with the crazy family we are but it was lots of fun to have friends along).

Day One:  We stopped for lunch about 4 hours into the trip.  Here is Brecon and Emerson walking around the beautiful gardens on the Freundschaftsinsel in Potsdam.

This is the only shot I had of all 6 boys (just pretend I'm not there).  Connor, Julian, Brecon, Emerson, Cael and Townsend

This is the house we stayed in Kroepelin...super cute.  We got used to the train that went by every 45 minutes or so, just across the driveway from the house.  Julian LOVED the train...I'm not so sure the rest of us loved it in the middle of the night!

Day Two: At the beach in Kuehlungsborn...too cold, too cloudy

The cool air didn't stop those Platt boys from trying out the boogie board!  We went home after about an hour or so hanging out that morning.  We put the babies down for naps and by 2:30 or so...

...the SUN came out.  We hopped back in the cars and drove to the beach again, the afternoon was much nicer...not HOT but at least sunny.

Cael and Emerson being sculpted into the sand.

Daddy helped the boys build a sand castle with a deep moat all the way around.

Connor and Julian hanging out in our rented beach chair/bungalow.

Day Three: Started off cloudy again so instead of hitting the beach we decided to take the old steam train to Bad Doberan.

Emerson is part monkey.  Here he is showing off his talent while waiting for the train to show up.

Julian and Connor enjoying the world as it passes by out the train window.

Brecon and Emerson watching the train track and enjoying the scenery from the back of the train.

Cael and Townsend, buddies on the train.

Favorite picture from the whole trip.  I love how Julian's face is all scrunched up, "not the kissy Mommy!"

The sun came out later in the afternoon and so we stopped for a bit of refreshment.

Cool old convent in Bad Doberan.

Inside the Gothic Muenster in Bad Doberan

After the whole day on the train and wandering around an old city I was ready to call it quits but the boys wanted to hit the beach one more time.  I'm so glad we did.  This last evening at the beach was the best time we spent at the ocean.  I think we stayed and played for about three hours!  Look how happy Julian is!

The big boys spent the better part of an hour building and then trying to protect this sand structure from the oncoming waves.  They worked really well together and tried many different tactics to keep the waves at bay but in the end the ocean won...bye bye sand structure.

Look at these kids...they totally LOVED the ocean waves.

Day Four:  It was pretty much rainy the whole day.  We found a great indoor pool about 30 minutes from the house and played there for about 5 hours.  That's the longest we have ever stayed at an indoor pool but this pool was pretty cool.  There were about 6 different water slides the boys could go down, all by themselves, and they had a wave pool and a pretty cool baby area.  We were all worn out after the pool so that evening we just stayed inside and watched movies.  Sometimes it's good to take a minute and actually RELAX on your vacation.

Day Five:  Headed for home.  It was a fun trip but we still aren't quite sure why the Germans love to vacation in the rainy cool Northern country.