Saarland and Luxembourg

 We took our first real vacation for 4 days this week.  Our friends, Harald and Mirjam were nice enough to let us tag along on their family vacation to Saarland.  We stayed in Tholey at a Jugendherberge (Youth Hostel).  It sounded great because it was cheap and they provided all the meals. (School-Cafeteria style)

 We explored the area in between rain storms.

It rained every single day.

 During one break, we explored the Sensory Trail across the street.  They had lots of fun little gadgets to play with and a huge park at the end.  We stayed until it started pouring.

 Every night as the kids slept, we ended up down at the Bistro for games and alcohol free-cocktails.

 One rainy day, we went out to a little museum with a water-mill, and were lucky enough to get a break in the rain to hike around.

 The next rainy day....see a pattern here?....we ended up at Bosiland at an indoor play place and exercised ourselves to death.  There were these sweet slides, where you free-fall at the beginning.  There were lots of kids hanging around the top, too chicken to actually go down.  Aaron went down with Scott once (rather reluctantly) and was so excited that they did it 7 times back to back.

Here is a video of the drop:  you can get the idea.

 Saturday, we bid the Siebke's farewell and toured Luxumburg on our way back to Aachen.

 The views in Luxumburg are absolutely fantastic, and touring the Casemates was so much fun for the boys.

Unfortunately the intermittent rain made the sky really gray and white most of the day, so it doesn't make for the best photos, but the views were amazing of the valley, river, churches and fortresses.

 As with most sightseeing....at the end of the day, we were exhausted, booked it for the car, 

and as Scott said "Stick a fork in me, because 'I'm done'.''