2nd day of our German Adventure

Man I love Friday's, there so good, yes? No. Not when they're good Friday...

A major plan for our day today was going to be taking Lacey and Troy to the amazing shops in Kohln (Cologne), but they were closed; everything was closed. Before we knew all this, this is how we began our day: 

After being extremely wary of the quality of this hotel after pulling up yesterday, all our faith was rewarded when we showed up to the included breakfast this morning; it was heaven on a plate. THIS made the Lublin hotel breakfast I raved about look like our dinky continental breakfasts back home. We had EVERYTHING, and we ate like kings. 

Afterward we drove along a road that paralleled the Mozel (river) in and out of miles of trees, and there were old towns and churches just built into the mountains. The drive was beautiful and it took us to the Haribo Candy Factory (the best gummy/candy manufacturer there is). When we got there we found it closed; we found the whole town closed and not a single person out and about. We snapped photos and left.

NEXT we made our way to the Kohln Cathedral which I found myself blown away by. It-was-HUGE. We went it and walked up the winding staircase all the way to the tallest tower. It made me sick. It wore me out. It was amazing.

We then made our way Aachen (awkhin) where we checked out the town building, a church, some more CLOSED shops... grr.. and just did some sight seeing. We went to a quaint Chocolate shop where I had a new experience. We purchased Hot Chocolates by selecting a flavor of hard block chocolate with a spoon stuck in it. Then, before paying you take everything you selected to a little table on the patio and they bring you some hot cream/milk. We placed the spoon with the chocolate on the end into the drink and stirred it until it was completely melted. I don't like hot chocolate, but I LOVED this stuff. We enjoyed this little cafe while Travis ran off to find a friend he had that he'd planned to meet up with. When we found him we then made our way to tour through the church where CHARLEMAGNE was crowned King and now housed his remains. We saw his tomb and and the church was immaculate. It was quite the experience.

~  We also ate some Italian ice. ~

My FAVORITE part of the day was when we made our to this fountain in the middle of a large courtyard and found two little boys scooting around on these two little wooden bikes that were self pushers. Maddix chased them around the fountain over and over again. Eventually one of the boys shared his bike and Maddix took many a turns chasing the boys. The parents explained to me that the dad was from Turkey but had lived in Germany for a long time, the mom was Romanian but lived in Hungry just before Aachen and that their boys spoke German, Turkish, Romanian, and a little Hungarian... and they were only 5 and 3... TRAVIS, teach our son German please. So a bit later our boys attracted another set of parents with a baby boy Maddix's age. He got down and played with them and the parents told me they were from Switzerland but were visiting Germany on Holiday:) By the end we even had one more friend join us. She was the most beautiful little girl I've ever seen. She was riding a long on her scooter keeping up with they boys and her father told us that he was Syrian and his wife was french... resulting in this gorgeous little angel. Maddix had so much fun with those kids and they all played so wonderfully. None of them knew each others language, or the cultural differences, and yet they worked together harmoniously. In fact I I've never seen kids share their toys the way they all did today. The boys kept rotating Maddix in on their bikes (Maddix was the poop SCREAMING every time his turn was over), the little girl kept sharing her scooter with the Swedish boy and it was just cute. It was by far the highlight of this trip:) 

We then had Travis' friend take us to his favorite restaurant and we dined on some "food for the common people," or what you would eat if a German woman invited you into her home for dinner; it stuffed us for the night and we were all done for. We barely made it back to the hotel and I had to hurry and write this day down before I forgot it! This trip has so fun and Troy and Lacey have been so amazing to be here with. Hope they know how much we appreciate their company!