Moving on to April... Spring Break! Part 1. Edelweiss and Neuschwanstein

  I had been looking forward to our Spring Break trip for a long time.  Everyone says that Edelweiss resort in Garmisch, Germany is one of their favorite trips while stationed over here.  We loaded up the car and made the long drive, breaking it up into two legs.  We drove over to Spangdahlem and stayed the night again in their lodging and then made the rest of the drive the following day.   Here's Edelweiss.  Our home base for a week.  It was sunny and nice the last couple of days we were there. At first it was super foggy though!  When we first pulled up to the place we couldn't even see the surrounding mountains.  It really is a beautiful place when you can see it.  I took these pictures of the resort at the end of the trip.

 
The first thing the kids wanted to do when we got there was swim.  The resort has a really big hot tub and pool.  It was the kids' favorite part of the trip.  Luke and Ella would have been in heaven just staying there and swimming.   It was Callie's first time being a swimmer.  She looked extra cute all chubbed out in her suit.  We could make a gold statue of her and it would totally fit in with the fat baby cherubs at Versailles.  Here she was before we went down to the pool  :)

 

 

 Hot tubbin'!

The first morning there, we set off early to see Neuschwanstein Castle.  We had heard that the views are stunning from the castle, and that you can get some great pictures from a bridge that overlooks it.   It is one of the biggest tourist attractions in Bavaria.  Not to mention, it was the inspiration for Disney's castle.  So romantic :)   Well, we hiked up to the castle viewing bridge, and everything was completely surrounded by FOG.  We couldn't even see the castle.  It was pretty much like standing in a big cloud.  So, we hiked down to be closer, and once we were there you could kind of tell there was a castle in front of us.  haha. 

We went inside and got through 15ish minutes of the tour and then had to make an early exit.  Callie started screaming.  What we saw inside was pretty cool though.  Ludwig II was crazy. 

So, our first trip over to Neuschwanstein wasn't quite what we had in mind.  haha.   Luckily we were able to go back on a nicer day before our trip was over.  You can get to the castle by taking a bus up the mountain, or horse and carriage most of the way and then hiking for 15 min, or you can muscle it all the way.  Our first visit, we took the bus.  It was crammed with Asian tourists.  Here are some pictures from our first Neuschwanstein attempt:  Hardly looked like spring! 

 

A little further away than this, and you couldn't even see the place!  Crazy.

 

Some pictures we took that day of the cute town below (Schwangau).  Jake and the kids are big fans of German hotdogs. 

This yellow place is Hohenshwangau Castle.   Kind of cool-looking from outside.  We didn't bother going in.

I love all the horses in the town.

We went a few days later and had good visibility when we first got up to Neuschwanstein, and then the fog rolled in again.  At least we got to see it better the second time around.  However, on attempt #2 the bridge was closed, so we still couldn't get the view we wanted.  Oh well.  We rode up in a horse drawn carriage the second time, which was much more fun than the bus!  Pics from Neuschwanstein visit #2!...  these poor horses hike up and down the mountain all day long.
 

View from the carriage ride... almost there  :)

We admired the castle for about 15 minutes, and then the fog came back.  Here it is fog-free :)

Family picture! 

We literally watched the fog creep up the mountain and cover the castle within just a few minutes.  This was the view looking out from the viewpoint of the above picture...

We were back to the fog we had our first visit.  Crazy.

View once we headed back down the mountain..

I think that wraps up our Neuschwanstein excursions.  I'm going to break up the rest of our outings into their own posts so they aren't forever long.