Parker Power

Grandma and Grandpa Parker are here for 10 days, so we've been trying to keep things action packed.  First KT met them in Köln and they checked out the church and Christmas market:

The next day they got the tour of Aachen: my work, the Dom (they even took a tour and saw what may be Charlemagne's throne) and then to the kid's Kindergarten.

We went to Monschau:

and KT took this marvelous picture of the river and some of the houses lining the river.

While in Monschau, we went to this little display thing with wax figures showing all of the Brother's Grimm fairy tales.  I only knew a few of them, and even then they weren't always recognizable because of the creative rights taken by Disney (not to mention the more humane punishments of the bad guy).

Then for Christmas lunch, we had the Meldrums and Sarah's family over.  It was great food, and our landlords Mike and Bärbel brought a fancy dessert over for us to enjoy.  Post lunch activities included talking, Qwirkle playing, and digesting.  Post-post activity included putting the little ones to bed, and entertaining one of the missionaries while his companion was Skyping with his family.  We tried to keep them from getting too homesick after they were done.

Then we went to Maastricht, Netherlands.  I've already talked much about Maastricht, but this time we pulled over at the Netherlands American Cemetary.  It was from WWII, and they didn't want to bury their dead on enemy soil (Germany) so they created these cemeteries in Netherlands and Belgium.  Worth seeing.

On Friday, we went to Val Dieu, Belgium.  It is a little monastery about 30 min. or so from our house.  On the way, we stopped at some churches in random villages, and found this little gem: a manger scene that Hollywood model makers would be proud of.  One has to put some coins into the machine, then the whole thing lights up and wheels begin to turn and water flows and the whole thing comes to life.  Despite the technological advances present in the design, it still maintains its country feel with an assortment of rabbit, ferrret, squirrel, and mouse taxidermy specimens running around the whole thing.  

By the time we got to the monastery, it was pouring.  But we had umbrellas, which afforded us a bit of a walk-about before heading back to the car.  The place is famous for its cheese and beer.  Our neighbor Mike was astounded that we didn't try the beer, but the cheese was fantastic.

The week ended with a visit to the theme park Phantasialand.  Not my personal favorite past time, but the Parkers spent too much time living in close proximity to Disney land to know any better.  

How's that for action-packed?