Coming home to Rheinland-Pfalz

Oh goodness, coming "home" always feels so good.

The view from our room, overlooking Trier <3

I actually had a hard time finding a good hotel where we could stay.  We'd never actually stayed in one, so I didn't have any idea what would work.  Plus, I didn't want to be too far away from both Trier and Bitburg.  Because the Air Force has basically left Bitburg, the lodging choices there weren't ideal, and the choices in Trier were off-the-charts expensive.  However, I found an absolutely delightful hotel on one of the hills that overlooks Trier.  And because anyone needs a car to access it, the prices were much lower.  Thank heavens for the Berghotel Kockelsberg!  Clean, nice rooms with a breakfast and a fantastic view.  We didn't need to sleep much, because we were ready to get going in the morning!

The day was just full of reliving fond memories, and showing Rebecca Ethan's childhood.  Certainly she hears enough references to "when we lived in Germany" that she was ready to see and experience some of these places!

It might sound crazy, but we actually drove to Auw a.d. Kyll so that we could all relive Ethan boarding the train each morning.

Ethan had so many funny stories to share; stories about Daddy getting him to the train in the early morning, stories of riding the train, and stories of getting from the Train to Max-Planck Gymnasium (his school).

Once in Trier, we headed straight for his school.  It's funny how big it felt to me when Ethan was so small, but it looks rather normal size now.  It was funny to see info about the "Kangaru" test on which Ethan notoriously cheated.  No wonder he has that mischievous smile!




Again, he told us stories about "Pause", and about his teachers, and he showed us a few of the rooms.  It really is surreal to think that so much of Ethan's love for Germany is rooted in that school (although he wouldn't admit that when he left the school in ninth grade!)

Next, it was on to one of my favorite places on Earth:  the Trier Fuessgaenger Zone.  I don't even know how many times I took the train, or drove here to do my shopping.  And the wonderful thing is that most of it hasn't changed a bit!

Der Dom is the main tourist attraction in downtown Trier.  We look at it and it feels more "meh" to us, because it's really just another big old Catholic cathedral.  However, it is sweet to remember that Mark played his horn for the first time on a big stage within the walls of that church.

Germany wouldn't be Germany without all of the food we love.  Ethan wanted to show Rebecca what it was like to buy something off the street from the Baeckerei.  As much as we know that Ethan speaks near-perfect German, it really is a testament to all of the hard work we put in to his language skills when we were living in Germany that he speaks like a native.  German honestly comes to him almost as easily as English.  I just love it.

And finally, we hit the spot that John and I most wanted to visit:  A Doener Kebab stand!  Woot!  As much as other places in the U.S. try to replicate what actual Turks are able to do with food, it just isn't the same. And one thing you can't get in the States?  An accompanying glass of Apfelschorle.  Oh goodness, my mouth is watering as I write this! 

We then spent a LOT of time in toy stores.  We hit the two big ones in Trier, and it was so fun perusing all the games that we have missed while being gone.  Too, I wished that all of the beautiful wooden toys existed in the States.  They were all so beautifully made, and not terribly expensive.   We walked out with toys for Baby, and several boxes of games, and BOOKS!  Yes, I'm not sure we ever visited a book store while we lived in Germany, but Ethan couldn't get enough of books he loves in a language he loves too!  And of course, knowing that Baby would be learning German as well, we bought books for her :-)  I have no doubt that we would have bought even more stuff, but we knew too that our suitcases could only hold so much.

Finally, the second wish of John and me:  Spaghetti Eis!  I do believe when I live in heaven that I will forego the "nectar" of the Gods, and just eat Doeners and Spaghetti Eis!  Oh, and maybe Schnitzel too.  It's just all so GOOD!

Our next stop was a tourist destination that I'm embarrassed to admit we NEVER visited in the six years we lived in the Rheinland-Pfalz:  the Porta Nigra.  No joke, it is one of the coolest places, but it was just so ordinary to us when we were there; kind of like people who live in New York City but never visit the Statue of Liberty.  I was determined that if we did nothing else, we would visit this old Roman gate.  And crazy thing?  It didn't disappoint!

This gate was built around the time of Christ when Trier was the Roman capital of the area.  There were four gates originally, but this is the only one still standing.  It's called the Black Gate for obvious reasons.  For me, when we lived here, it had always just been a landmark for navigating the city.

From within the Porta Nigra, we could actually see our cute little hotel up on the hillside!

And from the other side, we could see the Fuessganger Zone.  Gosh, we sure do love this place.

You'll notice that we ended up carrying our bags of books and games around with us :-)

Finally, it was time to head back to our actual HOME:  Preist (and Speicher).  We took the train back to Auw, and John decided to take his old run along the river Kyll.  We trained for a whole lot of marathons on this river; the path is perfectly flat, paved, shaded, and goes on forever.

John ran to the next stop on the route:  Daufenbach.

Like I said, it goes on forever, and it's just lovely.

Ethan, Rebecca and I hopped in our car, and it was only a five minute drive up the hill to Preist.

Words can't express how happy (and a bit sad) it made me to see our house again.  We loved this house, because our children and our family grew up here.  Children were baptized while we lived here, Eagle Scouts were made here, John had his first real job here, and I learned how to be a mother here.  Nothing about the house had changed at all.

And a lovely side note:  when I posted this picture on Facebook, so many people were able to list fond memories they had of this little house also.  We all love this house.

Ahhhh memories.  While we didn't actually run to "Tadpole Lake", Ethan could still relive all the feelings he had when we sent him on his daily 3-mile run.  I don't know if this lake actually had a name from the locals, but we named it "Tadpole Lake" from day one, because the first time we visited here, the thing was FULL of tadpoles.

And today was no exception! :-)

We also had to go just a little further down the farm road to find "the bench".  When I wasn't happy with the kids, "the bench" was the destination for their runs.  Running to Tadpole Lake was for good days :-)  Whenever they came home, I'd ask them if they'd touched the bench.  Ethan obviously still remembers, judging by the look on his face!

We had more to do the next day, and John was sweaty, so we headed back to our hotel for a short nap and dinner.  Unfortunately, our favorite restaurant back in the day, Roma's, had closed.  We were so sad to see it replaced with a night club.  However, you can't hit a rock in Germany without hitting a great restaurant serving delicious food, and our hotel didn't let us down.