Baar, Switzerland
Before we left, we took "daddy" somewhere that usually just mom & the kids go: the POOL! It was nice to be able to take Aiden in too. I wouldn't do that if I were by myself with Miss Crazy in the pool.
After being unsuccessful at finding a bathroom in this bookstore, I caught this daddy-daughter moment. Tal is such a good daddy and he looks more excited about finding whatever creature was on the front of that calendar than she was. 
We shared an apple strudel - we had to request the vanilla ice cream though and by the time we got it our strudel had cooled off a bit. It was still yummy though.
To those of you who don't like McDonald's breakfast and/or have never lived in a place where they have McDonald's that don't do American breakfast, this picture will have no meaning for you. For the rest of us, feast your eyes on THIS:
An entire breakfast menu. We found the Holy Grail of McDonald's a few blocks from our hotel. I ate TWO Egg McMuffins. Yum. I felt like crap afterwards and probably wont eat there again anytime soon but it was a few minutes of heaven.
Here's a picture I took of a poster
Mirrors are so much fun
Tal with the kids
Kelsey can ALMOST take a picture of us. She just needs to learn how to hold down the shutter. And how to keep her finger off the lens.
Eagle's Nest, Obersalzburg, Germany
Mirabella Gardens - these are famous gardens in Salzburg and our hotel was right next to them. Part of the Sound of Music was filmed in them. Kelsey ran away from me when I first tried to take pictures of her.
Marienplatz, Munich, Germany
The last time we saw Marienplatz was last September when we went with Tal's parents. It was dark and we only stopped for a few minutes on our way back to the hotel from Oktoberfest. We thought we had missed something great in Munich so we made it a stop on our way to Salzburg. It's a big city with some cool buildings worth seeing but I don't see a reason to go back. There are lots of cities I'd rather spend the day in, but I'm partial to smaller, quainter towns.
The Glockenspiel
My mom still raves about seeing the Glockenspiel in Munich when we went together in 2001. My response was, "we went to Munich?" Seeing it in daylight still didn't jog my memory, sorry mom.
Kelsey rode in Aiden's bassinet while Aiden rode Baby Bjorn style with me.
One of the many booths in the market
Kelsey taking pictures of us in the parking garage. I showed her how in the first one, the rest she took, with a little help.
Salzburg, Austria
We got into Salzburg Monday night, checked into the Sheraton and took a walk to the Bärenwirt restaurant for dinner. It was authentic Austrian and really good!
Aiden asleep on the bench
I had the dumplings and Tal had a Cordon-Bleu like schnitzel.
Kelsey loved the dumplings.
Walking off some energy
The Family Bed
No, we made the kids sleep in their cribs, but we had fun hanging out and playing games before bedtime. Once Kels & Aiden were asleep, Tal and I enjoyed the spa.
To those of you who don't like McDonald's breakfast and/or have never lived in a place where they have McDonald's that don't do American breakfast, this picture will have no meaning for you. For the rest of us, feast your eyes on THIS:
The next morning we decided to take our drive to the scenic places near Salzburg.
Driving through the hills that were alive with the Sound of Music
Hallstatt, Austria
We have had this Webshots picture on our desktop computer since 2004. Every time I saw it I thought, "Oh, I would love to go there!" Now I have and feel so lucky. I almost cried while looking out at the lake. It truly is beautiful.
Here's a picture I took of a poster
Here's my version of a similar angle. I learned that you need to be there in the morning to get the sun shining on the village from this angle and you need to go in the spring/summer to get the green hills and the flowers coming out of the yellow house.
Here's the view from the other direction
See the church steeple in the distance?
From the pier by the church, looking at the North Eastern end of town
Hallstatt is known for one of the oldest salt mines in the world dating back 7,000 years to the Celts. However, this is the closest we could get. They don't allow children under the age of FOUR. I've heard this is a must-see tour. Maybe one day, huh?
Isn't he handsome?
A few of the sites you would see in Hallstatt
I love those orange lantern plants! Oh, and Schmuck means jewelry. I wanted to get a picture of Tally next to the sign, but it was too tall to look like it was pointing to him. Plus, I think he would have caught on.
They have pear trees that grow up the sides of several of the houses.
The Reformed church
The town square or platz
Kelsey kept bugging him so he couldn't fall asleep
(yes, this is when a double stroller would be nice)
Finally, he fell asleep...sitting up
He looks like a doll
This is as close as we got to Hitler's Eagle's Nest. It had closed the week before, which we knew might be the case. It's up so high on the mountain that it had too much snow! We did take this trip a week or two too late in the season, but at least we missed the crowds ;). This is a close-up.
Salzburg, Austria
Here it is from the road out of town
Here it is at dusk from the bridge by our hotel
Aiden wasn't so happy about sitting on Kelsey's lap
The house Mozart was born in, the house he lived in, and an authentic Austrian
A church and the University of Salzburg
I love the way the city is built up on the rock, so picturesque
Putting style back into daddy's beanie
What started as a picture with one Asian tourist
Became an invasion of Asian tourists, each taking individual pictures with Kelsey. There were even more than this - I just had to stop taking pictures of her and go help her look at the cameras and not be scared. She wouldn't smile, she just looked like she was standing there because she didn't know a way out of it. In the end, she liked the attention and said "nee-hao" for them. She learned that on Dora, and yes, they were Taiwanese and say "nee-hao" for hello.
Tally says there were at least 3x that many - he wishes he could have taken a picture of it.
We walked up this super steep hill to get a good view of Salzburg. I pushed the stroller for exercise and boy was it hard work! Slow and steady wins the race ;).
Kels & Tal pose by a cool tree for me
Finally at the top! Isn't it gorgeous?
A hobo (or several) were living at the top. We didn't see them, just their stuff. It was kinda nasty up there.
Kelsey didn't mind., she loved running around up there.
I can't believe she had energy after hiking up the hill with us. She walked the whole way up. She's becoming so European.
Those are all beautifully hand-painted eggs! I was enthralled.
The very openly gay couple - that purse has a little frilly dog inside
Once back down into the city, we walked around looking for a place to eat.
There were several ROOMS of them.
We settled on Moredos - an Argentine chain restaurant. Random, but perfect for Kelsey. They had colored pencils and a menu to color on, toys, a kids menu, and kids ice cream. She was in heaven. They even had a candle for her to blow out (as a table decoration, not on the ice cream). Unfortunately Tally spilled the candle wax all over the floor and my hat just as we were leaving. Luckily, not on a person.
So to sum it up, we weren't in love with Munich, we loved Salzburg and loved Hallstatt. I would only go back to Hallstatt though if I could go on the Salt Mine tour. I thought Salzburg was very quaint for a big name town. It had a lot of character. Oh, and they have these Mozart Balls of chocolate filled with Marzipan and other stuff. They're not very good but are somehow addicting. Our hotel gave us some every night and they seemed to disappear. I think you've at least got to try them when you go to Salzburg.
We're really glad to have been able to spend some family time together and feel very lucky to have gone on this trip.
