The final post

Well, we're back home and settled in and the washing machine has been on constantly without seeming to make any impression on the mountain of clothes in the bathroom.

We had a great holiday. 6 full weeks in Germany and I feel like we could have spent another 6 there. There were so many places we didn't get to see and other places where we wish we could have spent longer. I certainly don't feel like we've 'done' Germany.

We sat as a family and decided on our 'best bits' - Nick's are in blue, Becky in pink and Zach in green (Reuben just liked anywhere he could climb or eat). Here they are:

Favourite city/town:
Munich
Berlin
Hamburg
Favourite thing to see:
Berlin wall
Berlin wall
Berlin wall
Best museum:
Mercedes-Benz museum
Well as we mostly went to car museums, I guess the Porsche museum
Porsche museum
Best outdoor thing:
Legoland
Tempelhof airport, Berlin
Autostadt
Favourite hotel/apartment:
A&O in Hamburg
Berlin if we didn't have the boys with us but the bungalow by the sea otherwise
Bungalow in Sierksdorf
Best meal:
No idea!
Pasta in Koblenz
Steak at the Mercedes museum
Place you wish you could have stayed longer:
Munich
Heidelberg
Rügen island
Thing you're most looking forward to about being home:
Seeing my friends
Sleeping in my own bed
Going on a bike ride  

Germany 2014 - we had a fabulous time! Now to start planning summer 2015!

Time to go home

Traffic was crazy on Saturday when we left Munich, although it seemed to be worse in the other direction. The satnav kept adjusting our arrival time based on the traffic delays and was varying between 1.15pm when we set off and up to 3pm at times.

We finally leave Germany after almost 7 weeks

We arrived in Linz at around 2.30 and bizarrely found that we'd booked ourselves into the same hotel that we'd stayed in the last time we were in Linz nearly 5 years ago without realising. The pool had a very cold outdoor pool which the boys enjoyed between shivers. Reuben decided that being up til 10pm the previous night was nothing so instead decided to stay awake til after 11.00pm. He was still awake at 5am though - the baby appears to need less sleep than I do!

Sunday saw us driving back to Budapest. We introduced Reuben to the wonders of Peppa Pig on the iPad while driving and we were able to be home by 2pm. It seemed almost surreal to be back after 7 weeks away - I can't wait to get in my own bed :)

Munich

We drove straight to Munich from Stuttgart (well with the obligatory stops for the baby who doesn't like spending longer than an hour in the car) and arrived at our hotel in Unterhaching which is about 20 minutes by SBahn from the city centre.

We headed into the city on the train and after finally figuring out which train ticket to buy we made our way to the Englischer Garten. It's a huge city park - larger than Central Park or Hyde Park. We meandered through the park and found the Chinese Tower with a band playing and the (apparently) oldest beergarden in Munich. Litres of beer were bought, sausages, pork knuckle, sauerkraut, potatoes and we feasted before the boys played in the nearby playground. A very sensible idea to have a playground right next to a beergarden, we thought!

Tuesday

Breakfast was apparently €19.50 each with no reduction for children, which seemed a bit steep (possible understatement) so Nick was dispatched to the nearby supermarket and bakery to get our breakfast - it's going to take some detoxing to get us used to our normal breakfast when we get home! We took the SBahn into the city and then spent the morning looking round the Altstadt (old town).

Reuben running for his Daddy!

We finished up back near a different part of the Englischer Garten to watch people surfing on the river. Never seen anything like it before - it was cool to watch and the boys loved it.

After a morning of sightseeing, the two littlest boys were ready for something a little more for them and so we went to the Deutsches Museum which is a science museum in the city. The basement is geared towards kids and has interactive stuff for them to do. It's absolutely huge upstairs but some of the museum is still very old-fashioned whereas other parts are much more interactive.

The Deutsches Museum

We managed to find some interesting, more hands-on parts and finished in the maths section :) We were herded out of the museum with hundreds of others at 4.55pm as it was closing at 5pm - they'd already started turning the lights off!

Wednesday was BMW and Olympic day. BMW welt and Olympic park are right next to each other do we decided to spend the whole day there. BMW world was, well, exactly what you would expect it to be! A huge showroom with BMW cars and motorbikes, Rolls Royce cars and Minis. You couldn't get in the Rolls Royce, unsurprisingly, but all of the others you could. Reuben and I sat in tag cafe while the two big boys satisfied their car urges and then we went to the museum. Having been around more than my fair share of car museums in the last few weeks, I have to say this wasn't my favourite. Although the design of the building both inside and out was beautiful, I found the actual museum didn't seem to flow very well. Or maybe I'm just done with car museums!

After lunch we walked over to the Olympic park. There is currently a summer fair on for August and Zach and I took a ride on the 'wild maus'. Zach laughed the whole way round - it was great! We then went into the Olympic stadium for a look around. The scale is huge, of course, and the tent-like roof is amazing now so it must have looked even more futuristic over 40 years ago. There was also an exhibition about Munich 72 which was really interesting but having thought I was off the hook after explaining the Cold War and the Berlin Wall, I was firmly back on it trying to explain the events to a 6 year old. After climbing to the highest point of the stadium (well, Reuben and I did but Nick was too scared so Zach looked after him), we left the stadium in search of an icecream.

Nick gripping the chair for dear life!

Back to the hotel and an early night ahead of Thursday's excitement. 

Thursday was Legoland day. Zach was ridiculously excited. It's a 1hr 20 minute drive from Munich to Legoland so we set off at 8.30 so we could be there by 10 when it opened. Reuben was surprisingly ok in the car as an hour is usual his limit but I only had to resort to fruit pastille a for the last 15 minutes. It was also great to meet up with the Scanga family there - Zach loved having someone to play with and it was great for Reuben to see his buddy Benjamin again. Fun on the rides, in the playground and then an incredibly rainstorm where we were soaked through. We managed to find each other again (Nick and Zach had gone a different way to find shelter), and the Scangas headed off for their new campsite.

Reuben's first ride

We spent another hour or so trying to keep dry while going on rides but soon enough there was bright sunshine again. Zach finished the day by going on his favourite ride for the second time and then we drove back to Munich. 

Friday was our last day so we gave Zach free choice as to what he wanted to do. He decided on a toy shop in the morning (we did a little shopping too) and got himself a new hot wheel. We went to a traditional brauhaus for lunch which was delicious schnitzel for the kids and me and a steak for Nick washed down with weissbier and apple juice.

We then headed back over to the Olympic park in the afternoon for some crazy golf (Zach was on a roll and got a hole in one on the first hole but Nick recovered well to take victory).

After a crazy coloured slushie, we took a ride up the Olympic tower, all 185m of it. Nick held it together and there were some pretty amazing views across the whole of Munich and to the mountains beyond.

A nice end to our Munich stay. 

Stuttgart

Stuttgart was always all about the cars. We only planned a weekend here - Saturday afternoon til Monday morning - but that was all that was needed.

We stopped off in Heidelberg to look around the castle and old town on the way.

It was surprising to suddenly be surrounded by so many 'foreign' tourists after a week being surrounded by Germans and German speakers. Although only a whistlestop tour, we were glad to see the castle - definitely not to be missed. 

We arrived in Stuttgart and headed on the UBahn into the city centre. Zach declared it to be the best UBahn ever and it would be hard to disagree. Comfy seats, plenty of space, clean and a surprisingly fresh smell - not the usual UBahn experience for sure, either in Germany or elsewhere. By the time we'd reached the city centre, the rain was pouring down so after standing looking at it for a while we ran to Müller and bought 2 very cheap umbrellas. Frankly they could have charged 10 times the price and we'd still have bought them. A meander through the city centre, a delicious burger restaurant and then back for a good nights sleep before Sunday morning's excitement. 

Porsche or Mercedes? What a decision. The boys decided on the Porsche museum in the morning and the Mercedes-Benz museum in the afternoon. I fear my blogging here will not convey the excitement but there were lots of cars and it was exciting (according to the big boys). As a non-car lover (is that even allowed in our family?!?) the Porsche museum was pretty cool. The museum kind of spiralled upwards from the earliest models to the latest, including a special exhibition on Le Mans. Everyone had audio guides on (they even had a kid-friendly version for Zach) so it was very quiet and people were kind of whispering. Almost like going around a church which was quite apt for a Sunday morning.

After a quick stop in the shop (1 car each), we drove to the Mercedes-Benz museum. Lunch in the restaurant (delicious) and then headed for the museum. Apparently everyone else had the same idea and they had closed the cash desks for a while as there were too many people in the museum. After being second in the queue when the Porsche museum opened at 9am, this was quite different. We only ended up waiting for 30 minutes before taking the futuristic-looking lifts up to the 8th floor before spiralling back down again.

Much bigger than the Porsche museum - any better? I have no idea. One car pretty much looks the same as another after a while ;)

We finally arrived back at the hotel at around 5.30pm. A very car filled day and very happy boys who were still discussing their favourite cars at breakfast on Monday.

Relaxing at the hotel

Next and last stop: Munich.