Another Trip to Denmark

Last weekend, we visited Denmark to see Timo's grandmother and parents. It was a low-key trip, which was good, since all of us ended up getting sick. This did not stop the kids from visiting the pool, though, and we took advantage of the access to expose the kids to the water. They swam three times in the two full days we were there.

H hanging out in the pool.

AJ swimming around

The audience

K and H in the pool

K enjoying the pool

We also visited a local dairy where they offer soft-serve ice cream that would delight the epicurean in anyone. AJ chose banana sprinkles on a cone as large as his head. H refuses to eat ice cream, so he missed out on this mouthwatering treat. K missed out, too, since she chose a push-up instead of the soft-serve.

AJ enjoying his massive ice cream cone

It was a sunny day, so we took our ice cream outside to savor in a proper fashion. H warmed up to Timo's parents enough for them to hold him.

Farfar and H

Farfar, Farmor, and H

The dairy where we bought the ice cream

Of course, we were also there to see Timo's grandmother, not just to swim and eat ice cream. She enjoyed seeing the kids play and interact. H let her hold him a bit, and the two of them even had this thing going on where she would shake his hand and say, "Hi," then he would walk off, and return later to do the same thing. It was fun to see them interact.

H and Mormor

Mormor also gave the kids hand-knit hats, and they tried them on for the camera. AJ refused to look at the camera and smile, but that is not so unusual.

Germany Trip Day 15: Leaving Nuremberg, heading home

We weren't the only ones having a fitful slumber throughout our night in Nuremberg. This is how I found the kids when I got up in the morning. At least they seemed to sleep longer than we did.

After getting up and getting ready, Timo took a load of bags to the car while I led the kids to the restaurant for breakfast. We made sandwiches for the road between bites of food, and we checked out when we were assured that the room was free of our belongings. We then drove out of town and started north.

We made pretty good time on the road. Actually, we did much better than we had thought, and we did not encounter as much construction traffic as we had anticipated. We arrived at our hotel shortly before dinnertime, expecting to be able to eat and relax for the rest of the evening.

This hotel had been the same one we stayed at in Fehmarn on our way down. We had made the reservation in person, and, guess what? They didn't honor the reservation and the hotel was booked. This was a familiar song that I didn't care to hear again. We grumpily loaded everyone back in the car and drove toward another hotel that was located closer to the ferry we would have to take to get to Denmark. On the way, we decided to go ahead and see if we could get on the next ferry and find a hotel in Denmark.

The line to the ferry was long and slow, so I got H out of his car seat, and we wandered around until Timo and the car were closer to the front. We had purchased our ticket for the ferry ahead of time, and the date was for the next day, so we were hoping we would be able to get a ferry -- any ferry -- across that night. We were shocked when the man not only told us we could get on, but he pointed us to the priority lane that was boarding right away. Thank you God that we got on that ferry because we needed some favor on that day. We ate dinner, and the kids played in the small play area on the ferry while we crossed the sea. Forty-five minutes later, we arrived in Denmark.
When we arrived, we focused on finding a hotel for the night. This proved to me much more difficult than expected, with four failed attempts before we finally decided to drive all the way to Copenhagen to improve our odds of finding a room large enough for all of us. Shortly after 9pm, we finally checked in at a Scandic in Copenhagen. Every Scandic has a play area in their lobby, and the kids got their pent-up energy out before settling down in our room for the night. We all slept fairly well, and we were happy to know we had just cut two hours off our travel time for the next day.