Bavarian Summer

The Bavarian summer is a little different than what we've been used to.  I don't really count last summer because we missed half of it and then were in a hotel for the other half waiting on a car and trying to find a house.  So this is our first summer of really having a summer and it's a little different!  

First of all, the weather is back and forth.  Tomorrow should be 94 degrees -- the hottest day we'll have had so far.  And we get some hot weather, but maybe for a few days and then it cools off for a bit.  Or we get really cold weather for a few days and then it warms up!  I'd had really high hopes of getting the kids in swimming lessons but I don't know that it would've worked with weather and rain.  So in many ways we've had a lazy summer, playing at parks when it's nice and staying at home when it's not.

A few weeks back we finally tracked down the pirate park with some friends.  This is a pirate ship basically in a sandy pond.  The water isn't deep and there are fun things other than the ship but the kids had an absolute blast.  And got really really cold in the water.  It was worth it.

 We took a Saturday to go to the Maximilian Grotto and explore.  The tour is all in German but I had been there before with some friends and we had pieced a good deal of it together.  It's a small cave and pretty self-explanatory really.

Abby under the eagle rock

And William

One of the narrow passages

A rare smile

There's a restaurant by the cave -- food's ok but the kids thought the bike parking sign was fantastic!

On a map of the area it looked like there was a castle ruin not too far so we set off in search of it and found that it's a partial ruin.  It had been a restaurant and then a hotel for a while but was too expensive to keep up.  You can't explore too much but it was fun to walk around and imagine what it was.

And it had some great views!

The kids loved the giant snail shell in the wall of course.

We had a day where we went back down to Regensburg to take William to a doctor's appointment.  Since I'm not familiar with the area, it helps to have another adult around rather than herd the kids myself!  The appointment went well and then we spent some time in the city.  One of the best things about living here is being able to explore places over and over.  We really like Regensburg and went to St. Emmeram's and toured the Thurn and Taxis palace (no pictures of that).  They are the wealthiest family in Germany and built their empire and nobility/royalty on the mail system!

Organ at St. Emmeram's