Spring Time Fun in Germany

It's been a hectic couple of months around here, full of visitors, travelling and a move into a new house!  I figured this stretch of days with high temperatures reaching up to 100 would be a good time to try and get caught up on the blog.  We have a lot to catch up on dating back to the spring!

Spring is such a gorgeous time on Germany.  I think it might be when Germany is at it's prettiest. The patchwork fields are bright green with patches of brilliant yellow, spring flowers are blooming, and all of the orchards are full of blossoms.  Early this spring, Kyle's brother, his wife and our niece came to visit from London for Easter.  Unfortunately the weather wasn't wonderful, but we still had a great time together.  On their first day here, it was cold and rainy, so we went to visit Stuttgart's Schwein Museum, or Pig Museum.  We ate a delicious and porky lunch with pigs flying on the ceiling overhead before checking out everything pig in the museum.  It's a fun and quirky place, great for a rainy day! (I stole a lot of Lynn's pics from Facebook.  Thanks, Lynn :-)

Dinner later that evening at the Neckarmüller

On Easter day it was still cold.  It even flurried a bit!  We enjoyed the day at home, relaxing and eating a big brunch and dinner.  It was nice just taking it easy!

She wasn't too thrilled with the ears!

Someone's peaking at me!

Kyle and Cory spent most of the day in this exact spot.

Skyping with Grandma and Grandpa (Mom and Dad) Guynn while we open Easter surprises they sent!

The next day we headed to Rhine Falls, Switzerland.  We had lunch and checked out the adorable town of Schaffhausen before heading to the falls.  Rhine Falls on the Rhine river is Europe's biggest waterfall in terms of volume of water.  It's a very impressive site.  

A medieval fortress we climbed up to for a nice view of the town

We finally had nice, sunny weather on the day they headed back to London.  Luckily, they had a late flight so we were able to enjoy the day at the lovely Killesberg park before they left.  It was so nice having them here, and we will hopefully be able to meet up with them soon.  Being far away from family is hard, especially when little ones are involved!

This spring we had a couple of friends, Laura and Aaron, move to Wiesbaden, just a couple of hours north of Stuttgart.  Shortly after they arrived, Aaron was away on business for a week, so we got together with Laura to do some site seeing.  Kyle and I drove up to Wiesbaden to meet up with Laura, then the three of us headed to the picturesque town of Rüdesheim am Rhein where we hopped on a ferry on the Rhine river just seconds before it left.  We enjoyed the beautiful scenery of the terraced vineyards, quaint towns and castles along the river for a couple of hours before hopping off the ferry and taking a train back to Rüdesheim.  It was a great way to spend a sunny spring afternoon!

Laura came back to Stuttgart with Kyle and I to spend a couple of days.  The next day the three of us, along with a friend of Laura's that was visiting Germany from the States, went to visit the Insel Mainau (also known as the Flower Island) on Lake Konstanz.  It's a beautiful location, right on the border of Switzerland and Germany.  The island had amazing displays of spring flowers which reminded me a bit of the tulips at the Keukenhof gardens in Holland.  The island has a wide variety of plants so that it's always full of color.  

Laura was supposed to take a train back to Wiesbaden the next day, but a train strike prevented that from happening.  (There have been a ton of train strikes the past several months...I'm sure they've lost millions of euros.)  That gave us time to check out the Stuttgarter Frühlingsfest, or Spring Fest.  The Frühlingsfest is pretty much like Oktoberfest in the spring time.  It's a huge event that lasts three weeks.  They set up rides, shops, food stands and most importantly, beer tents.  We were there on a weekday afternoon, so it was very tame, but we still had a liter of beer and half of a roasted chicken in the beer tent as we watched people in their dirndls and lederhosen start to trickle in for their evening reservations. We walked around the fest grounds and enjoyed another sunny spring day!  Laura was able to catch a train home the next day since the strike was over.  We've all been busy lately, but we're looking forward to seeing Laura and Aaron hopefully sometime before too long!

Kyle and I went back to Frühlingsfest that weekend with a big group from Kyle's work.  We had so much fun enjoying our chicken and beer listening and swaying arm and arm with good friends to cheesy music!  

Old traditions meet new selfie technology...

We usually just post about our trips and travels, but there is so much to see and do locally!  We had a wonderful spring enjoying our local area with friends and family.  Now, with these 100 degree Fahrenheit days, I'm wishing for some of those cool (but sunny) spring time days!