Our trip to Germany was wunderbar! We flew into Frankfurt where we rented our Focus Turbo Diesel wagon and off down the Autobahn we sped. We arrived first in Oberkochen where we stayed with Jim's Tante Eva. We were pleasantly suprised to find his cousins Regina and Deter visiting as well. We hiked around the Schwabische Albe, visited the Roman Kellar, stocked up on Triumph in Aalen, and enjoyed a day in the city of Ulm. Regina understood my need for ice cream, so all of our outings included a stop for my favorite treat
From there we traveled north, taking a few days to explore other parts of Germany. We followed the Romantic Road to Nordlingen. While exploring the city we heard this loud speaker babbling information, then we began to see what the babble was about. European vintage cars and motorcycles began to roll through town. They were a part of a rally called 2000 km of Deutchland. The Opel Blitz was my favorite, talk about cool moho! 
Later that afternoon we drove to the Rothenburg; every American and Japanese tourists favorite destination. The shops were full of Christmas wares, American high school students were singing in the town square, and we couldn't get over how we felt that we had flown 3000 miles just to visit Leavenworth. The real reason for stopping here was to walk the Roman walls. According to Rick Steves, this walled city is the best example of Roman walled cities in Germany. We only walked a small portion of the wall, but you could imagine what it must have been like to stand on the wall and defend the city. As you can tell from the picture, the girl found this most interesting.
The next day we visited Goslar which is the gateway to the Harz region. The city is filled with buildings covered in slate: slate roofs, slate siding, slate chimneys. The rain dampened our day a bit, we were completely unprepared for the weather. However we got a kick out of all of the tourists stopping us to tell us how cute the girl was sticking out of Jim's jacket. Here also is the UNESCO site of the Ramelsburg mines. These mines have been in use for over a thousand years. Now you can tour the mines. Unfortunatly a four our hike through damp tunnels didn't seem inviting for the new parents. But this town was so enchanting we vowed to go back to explore it futher. That evening we stopped outside of Bergen in a nice little hotel where we had the most amazing dinner featuring freshly harvested chantrelle mushrooms.On to Hamburg and the home of Mike and Simone. We were greeted with coffee and cake and much good cheer. We ate well, laughed often, and drank to Oma Erna every evening. 
