Hamburg

On the way home from the vacation we stopped in Hamburg. We had a good time. So we went to Hamburg to go to this haunted house thing the girls wanted to go to. It was actually pretty cool. It wasn't a normal haunted house. The theme was that you went back in time to times when Hamburg was troubled and see if you survive kind of thing. So it went back to four periods of time. The Plague, the Crusades, a large fire, and pirating. It was really cool cause I could learn a little of Hamburg's past.

This picture is just of the top of one of the buildings. A lot of these buildings in Hamburg are very old and a lot of them have these toppers. It was very pretty to see all the old architecture.

This picture is of the canal that goes through the city.

But before that, we had some time and Dagmar said her brother had told her of a place he wanted to show me. We decided to visit it. It was an old burned down cathedral. It's called St. Nickolai. It burned down in the summer of 1943. Hamburg was bombed by the British in what was called Operation Gomorrah. They bombed for about 6 days straight and pretty much 3/4 of Hamburg was burned to the ground. All that was left of this cathedral was one wall and the bell tower. They have reconstructed the inside of the bell tower so you can go the top, but they left it all black, there are no windows or anything left of it's former glory. Bellow, they have built it a memorial to WW2. It was heartbreaking. Over 40,000 people died that night.

These are of the couryard. You can see the other wall that was left standing.

Isn't the architecture beautiful.

This is what is meant by a Glockenspiel. We've been mistaken.

These are all pictures from the top of the belltower. The pictures of the black and white pictures are of Hamburg after the fire, the destruction of the city.

These were statues in the courtyard. Sometimes these blogs don't turn out the way I want them to so I will explain a little. The tall woman with the hands is the Angel on Earth, the boy is The Ordeal. This brightly colored photo is a picture I took of a postcard I bought. I coudn't get good ones because as you can tell, it was not exactly a clear day that day.

This is a replica of the stained glass windows that used to be in the church.

This is a picture of what the church used to look like.

I

really liked this quote.

So this was my favorite plaque that I saw there. It was very sad, and it all made me cry. This plaque, I can't remember all of it and only a portion can be seen in this photo. But it told of all the people that died and then says that the world will never forget the horrors that were caused by a group that was hungry for power and the injustice they brought upon the whole world. Down in the corner, here in this other picture, it says Vater vergib... which means, Father forgive...

This is written in old German. It says:

Tue deinen Mund auf für die Stimmen und für die Sache aller die Verlassen sind.

It basically means to have a moment of silence for the voices and things of all those that were left behind, or abandoned.

I figured since there were only 3 pictures of this I would just put them up too. This is of Mimi's baptism. The family of course. And then the guy holding the door in the other picture is Opa (Grandpa) Schumaier. He looks kind of scary in that picture but he's super nice.

So I think I am almost caught up, just in time to get behind again! For any of you who keep up with this, sorry that it takes me so long. If your internet was as slow as mine, you'd understand! I love you all and miss everyone!

Urlaub Nu. 1!!!

Ok, so this post will be a little long...this is of our vacation! So we went to a place called Center Parks Resorts. For those of you who don't know, it's a chain that has resorts all over europe and this one happens to be only about an hour and a half away. So unfortunately they are updating right now, adding more bungalos but we didn't get to stay in the coolest ones. In the spring of next year they will be finished and they are adding updated bungalos that look amazing and tree house bungalos and boat house bungalos. So it looks like I am going to have to make a trip back next spring....so yeah, it's great. So we just hung out and relaxed and went to the pool and ate good food. Just the way a vacation should be!

So these two pictures are of Mimi up on the top of this play thing in the middle of the main place. She was wanting to jump and Dirk was about to poop his pants trying to get her down because he has a huge fear of heights. The next picture is after she jumped and he had to walk away and calm down. From my perspective, the whole thing was quite funny.

These are just pictures that I took while I was playing with my camera. I thought they looked cool. I don't know. It was fun though!

We went on a walk before we took the kids to ride the horses so this is us on our little walk through the surrounding areas.

They really liked playing with the video camera.

Mimi had a little bit of trouble with her horse at first, but eventually it all worked out.

One of the things you have to have on every good vacation.....ICE CREAM!!!

They loved all the wildlife around.

Don't let that yawn fool you, they never went to bed before about 11:30 or later everynight, this was only at like 9.

So these are pictures of the pool area. It was absolutely huge. The main pool in the middle was a wave pool, which had a small outlet to the lazy river around that. And then you went through the big cave to get to the artificial sun bathing area. Then there were slides everwhere. Starting from small ones gettin larger until the biggest one was right at the roof.

All of these tropical plants and trees are real. Not artificial. It was really cool, and very pretty.

This is inside the main part of the main building. There are other kinds of tropical birds as well, including some very lazy flamingos in the river that runs through the middle of the whole place.

Don't let them fool you. They were squeezing each other pretty hard and trying to tip the other into the lake. This picture looked the most loving though!

So these are of the zip line. These first two pictures are the day before. Majlie was a little scared. She's also not too fond of heights.

The day of. These are a few pictures before our first time up. There were two lines so we went up in groups of two. Mimi with a new found friend and Majlie and I.

I don't know what this face was but she's always making faces like this. She reminds me of Ryan. Always the funny jokester.

Again, you can see why she reminds me of Ryan.

So the just drop you into a boat after you've taken the plunge. It's really a lot of fun. In the summer time they pull you through the water for a little bit. Once again, reason why I have to come back sometime!

And finally, this is us at dinner on our last night. Dirk took the picture so he's not in it. The girls were pooped. Mimi looked like she was going to pass out the whole time. I have a lot more pictures, but these were the important ones, or at least most of them. The others you'll just have to wait to see till I get back! So yeah, this was our first vacation. Lots of fun. Great place. It was cool. And again, wait till next time! I'm not yet done! But for now, tschüss.