Ping Pong

Ping pong is fast becoming a new favorite in our household. On Josiah's class trip to Goslar, he had the opportunity to play a lot of ping pong with his classmates during free time. He's gotten quite good! Also, at FKG, the older three boys' school, there are outdoor ping pong tables that the kids can use during recess and after school. Our church also has a table in the basement that the boys play on each Sunday after the service. Needless to say, they are developing mad skills...not just Josiah. They are so good, in fact, they are wondering if they might just be able to beat their Uncle Scott upon returning to the States next summer! They are good....probably not "Uncle Scott" good! :)

All of this has prompted the boys to want paddles of their own so on our trip to Real this weekend, we purchased a set of paddles and ping pong balls. Josiah and Noah transformed their school desk into a miniature table. It's quite challenging to play on this size of a table! Yesterday, we had our first single elimination family tournament. Josiah and Noah made it to the championship round with Joj taking it all. This time. With four competitive boys and two competitive parents, he won't hold that spot for long!

Notice all the blankets on the ground....their attempt to soften
the sounds for our neighbors below us!

They wanted to open windows to cool off....hence the lack of
clothing. Meanwhile, I'm wearing several layers and wondering
whether to turn the heat up a bit!

A game Noah and Joj created on Sunday morning while trying
to be quiet for the rest of the family. They see how many times they
can roll the ball back and forth between paddles before dropping
it. I'm thankful that the boys are thinking of others as they
create these games!

The black chair is for the score keeper...won't be long until
they have a scoreboard mounted somewhere!

Orange duct tape (thank you, Gi!) is securing
the colored pencils holding the knotted string
for the net! Use it up, wear it out, make it do,
or do without! The boys hear me say that a lot -
as I heard it daily when I was a little girl
....glad they are creative.

Cologne with the Louws Family

Yesterday, we took the train to Cologne for the afternoon. On weekends, families can buy a Schönes Wochenende (Happy Weekend) ticket for 40 Euros per day. With that pass, a family can travel any regional train within Germany that they choose to - all day/any train. It's a great way to see other cities. It takes longer than the ICE, the high-speed rail - we spent about 11 hours on the train to see the Louws and Cologne for five hours....but it was so worth it! And we'd gladly do it again! It was so good for us to be able to visit with friends. Plus we picked a neat city to meet in as well.

We decided to meet at the Dom - a cathedral built in the 1200s, or at least started at that point. It is now comical to me that I suggested we meet by the cathedral - it's massive! How in the world were we going to find each other? It was raining outside so we opted to search inside for them....along with thousands of other tourists! The boys were quite concerned that we didn't immediately see our friends so we opted for the 'divide and conquer' approach planning to meet back in five minutes. Thankfully, the Louws did the same thing choosing the same meeting spot!

Wanting to visit more than anything, we chose to see the cathedral on our own rather than pay for a tour. We did, however, pay the family fee to climb the 533 steps to the top of one of the steeples. What a hike! And what a view!

 

Photo taken by Mitchell Louws







All the stained glass was absolutely beautiful!
Photo taken by Mitchell Louws

As we stood talking together near the entrance to the Dom, we
could hear singing from near the front of the cathedral. Following
the beautiful sounds, we found this mens' choir singing a cappella.
Just beautiful! We even heard a song that we recognized -
'Jerusalem, Jerusalem, lift up your voice and sing....' (Holy City)
but it was all in German so we enjoyed the four part harmony
and an occasional word or two!
 

I could have spent the day taking in all of the
details in just the woodwork alone - even the
pews were beautifully carved.



There were quite a few life-size statues
throughout the Dom - this is one
depicting the death of Jesus.

The pipe organ was massive - the pipes were about five stories
above where we were standing. When we were getting
ready to climb the steeple, we could hear the organ briefly - and at that
point we were under the cathedral at its foundation. I can only imagine
hearing it during a service! Breath-taking, I'm sure!
Photo taken by Mitchell Louws
 

 

 



We could have spent hours figuring out which
Bible stories were depicted in these carvings/statues.
I believe I took this photo at one of the side entrances.

The dads and younger boys spent a few minutes figuring out these statues while
the rest of us were taking some photos inside before deciding on a restaurant.
There were about 12 of these Old Testament statues a couple stories
above where we were standing.

This only captures about half of the Dom - can you believe I suggested just
meeting there? Thankfully we didn't have any issues finding one another!

To get a sense of the size - at the bottom of the photo are
the heads of two people - they don't even come the the
halfway point of the doors!

After spending time at the cathedral, we opted to find a restaurant serving Schnitzel. This was the only day that the Louws were in Germany while in Europe so we wanted to find a place to try some German food. Schnitzel was our number one choice but Brats would have been fine, too. Technically, Schnitzel is Austrian but it seems to be quite a common dish for Germans as well. A guy at an information station near the Dom gave us a map and the names of a few good restaurants to try. We were headed for Peter's Brauhaus when the dads discovered some restaurants along the waterfront of the Rhine.

The dads studying the map... in the rain, no less!

The search for Peter's continues!

~ Micah, Mitchell and Joel ~
The boys were basically three peas in a pod most all of the afternoon!

~ Josiah, Ethan and Noah ~
The same for the younger guys as well!

On our way to find Peter's, we stumbled across several restaurants along the Rhine River. One of the restaurants had a sign outside announcing Schnitzel on their menu. Though a chilly day, we sat outside with the blankets and heaters available to us. This was a good option as we had the whole outdoor seating area to ourselves.

We made the ordering easy - all 11 of us ordered Schnitzel!

Helen's mother joined them on their trip - she was a delight to get to know!

After finishing the Schnitzel, we walked along the Rhine for a bit before heading back to the train station. By this point in the afternoon, the rain had stopped which made it much more enjoyable to be outside. Helen brought some Dutch cookies to share with us - so very yummy!

 

We all especially enjoyed the cookies that have
caramel on the inside. Tracy said that he'd had
enough sweets until he heard the word caramel!

Our first train out of Cologne left the station at 5:21 - it was a quick visit with our friends but oh, so good for us all! We had to switch trains several times on the way home - one of the legs was jam packed with travelers so we stood for that hour at the entrance with several others without seats. We were so thankful to not have luggage and all remembered our initial train ride into Göttingen with too many bags and not enough room on the train! What a zoo that trip was! So bad, in fact, that we have contemplated shipping boxes home. At one of the stations, we had 20 minutes to wait for our next train. Because it was chilly, the boys figured out a way to stay warm.

The boys had me time them as they raced up
and down the stairways connecting the platforms.
It worked in keeping them warm!

To pass the time on the train, I brought along the book, Trapped in Ice, by Eric Walters - a great read-aloud! We all enjoyed listening to this book - based on a true story of the Canadian Artic Expeditions of the early 1900s. We arrived in Göttingen around 11:00 pm and were quite thankful to find that it had finished raining here, too, since we had to hop on our bikes for a quick ride home. What a treat the day was for us all!

Day Trip to Nörten-Hardenberg

October 3rd is a national holiday in Germany celebrating the reunification of Germany some 20+ years ago. The actual date the wall started to come down was November 9, 1989, but a few other things in Germany's history also happened on that date - such as Kristallnacht - so another date was chosen, October 3rd. Our neighbor recently told us that Germans strive to protect their holidays and that it is against the law for most businesses to be open on national holidays. So Wednesday the boys didn't have school, grocery stores were closed, buses ran on a holiday schedule, etc....all this leads to a quiet and relaxing day. I really like this! I like that there is a forced slow-down rather than a rush to the closest Kohl's to get the early bird specials. It is refreshing that life doesn't revolve around consumerism on the holidays.

So...what to do with a day off in the middle of the week? Our friends from church, Fred and Marta, invited us to join them in Nörten-Hardenberg for the afternoon.  Fred's mom lives in this little town about 10 km away from Göttingen. It is a commuter town - with a quick seven minute train ride between the two towns. They thought we might enjoy both seeing some castle ruins and picking apples in the backyard.

Fred met us at the train station and walked with us back to the house. We dropped off our things and headed straight away to the castle ruins. Fred, now retired, was an international business man so he has great English skills. In fact, he is the one that simultaneously translates the sermons at our church into English for the non-German speaking attenders....and those that are still learning!

We had the train to ourselves on the way there.

Walking from the station - you can just
barely see the tower of the castle in the trees
above Tracy's head.

As we walked the few kilometers to the castle, Fred gave us many details about the castle - some of them being that: 1. it dates back to over a thousand years ago, 2. it was actually two castles side by side with families living them that didn't get along, 3. lightening struck the castles making them uninhabitable mainly because the two families couldn't agree on who would pay for the repair costs, and 4. the grounds surrounding the castle and much of the forest in the area are now privately owned by a Count that inherited it all from the original owners from centuries ago. About once or twice a year, the Count will open up the ruins for anyone wanting to explore and we happened to choose the right day to go! Because it was a national holiday, there were several performances taking place on the castle lawn and a couple of booths selling brats and drinks.

The McKenzie Boys with Eva, Fred and Marta's
granddaughter~ she was one of the performers as you
can tell from her 'cat' facepaint. Her line was, "Meow," and she
did this with great enthusiasm!

Before we made our way to the ruins, Fred showed us the grounds at the foot of the hillside leading up to the castle. Three restaurants, a five-star hotel, beautiful gardens open to the public, a horse arena, and a stillery are among some of the attractions on the property.

The stillery - Fred said that there are over 50
variations of Schnapps produced here.

The gardens are just beautiful with paths for walking all over the
hillside. At the left of this picture, you can see a few stairs - these
lead to the outdoor skating rink used in the winter. I'm hoping
they rent skates as I'd like to give it a try this winter as a family!

The Biergarten - the outdoor seating areas of one of the restaurants.

This photo was taken to make Jason Panciera jealous! :)

And this one is for Kim Panciera! Fred told us about the international
horse riding competitions that take place at this arena. Joj and Noah
decided to give the jumps a go and ran around, under and
through many of the jumps - it was fun to be outside to let
them run off some of their energy.

The five-star hotel has only 48 rooms.

This is a natural rock cellar - keeps all the drinks
cool that the restaurant serves to guests. An
employee was filling this crate while we were
watching. The rock above Noah's head was
engraved with the Roman Numerals for 1841.

The wild boar is the emblem for this family. The restaurants all
serve wild boar as a main dish on the menu - shot in the forests that
we walked through that afternoon.

The next several pictures are from walking around the ruins.

One of the day's festivities was rapelling over the
side of the castle wall. All of the boys would have
loved to give that a whirl!

They got there fill of climbing for the day! We were fortunate that the rain
held off - only had a few sprinkles all afternoon.

Exploring a cavern...not sure I want them to go any farther!

The count opened up the roads leading to the castle he and his family currently live in as well - this castle is only 300 years old, very new by German standards. The grounds are just beautiful! The following pictures are from walking down the lane by his house.

Fall is going to be gorgeous this year!

The stables

~the lane between the castles~
Joj and Noah playing rock soccer as they walk
back to Daddy and the rest of the crew.

Marta made fresh lemon cake for us to enjoy once we returned from the castle. I had brought frosted sugar cookies that were to look like apples. I didn't have enough food coloring though so they were pink! Regardless, the boys loved all the treats. We then picked apples, played soccer in the side yard and generally enjoyed being out of doors.

All the boys took turns on the ladder attempting to find the
biggest apples!

We helped by collecting all that had fallen to the ground and
dumping them on the compost pile.

The tree and the ground were absolutely covered with apples!

Eva is such a sweet girl and talks a mile a minute in such
rapid German that we often have to ask her a couple of times
before we catch all that she is saying. The boys' German is
greatly improving though as they didn't have to ask for repeated
sentences and instead, were telling me what is was that Eva had said!

We filled four backpacks full of apples to bring home and enjoy.

Yes, my boys are playing soccer frequently these days.....
and enjoying themselves!

We are so thankful for how Fred and Marta have reached
out to us since arriving in Germany!