Nate and Luxembourg

A couple of days after Darren's parents left to go back to Oregon, my brother Nate came to visit us. His wonderful wife, Julie, volunteered to have their two kids, Ally and Jackson - the cutest niece and nephew ever- all by herself for a week while he came to visit us here in Germany. Thanks, Julie!

Mikayla and I drove in to Frankfurt to get him, since train tickets are much more expensive if you don't get them as part of a package deal with your airline tickets (like we did) than I thought they would be. Mikayla did great for the two hour drive over there. Nate's phone had died just as he was getting off the plane, so he had to find a pay phone and figure out how to use it before he could get a hold of me and arrange for a place to meet in the airport. We were a little late getting there, so Nate had a bit of time to explore the airport and sit while waiting, but we finally did meet up. We hung around at the airport for a little bit after that to have lunch and to let Mikayla run around for a little bit before the drive back to our apartment.

It was fun to be able to show the little part of Germany where we have been living to Nate. It was fun to be able to show him where we live and show him good places to go running. He is training for a marathon in October, so every time Darren and I had gone on walks or when I went running before Nate came I kept thinking about how much fun Nate was going to have on those trails.

The first day he was here, we just came back to our apartment, let him sleep a little, and went on a walk around the village where we live. On the second day, though, when Darren was at work, we decided to take a day trip to Luxembourg. It is a little over a two hour drive to get to Luxembourg, the city, so we thought it would be a fun trip. Nate drove the whole way there and back, so he got the experience of driving the autobahn. It is too bad that they stopped giving stamps for your passports at the borders now, but it is nice to say that we got to another country. And it is a beautiful country. The two or three hours that we had to explore were definitely not enough.

Nate in downtown Luxembourg

Luxembourg

Nate at the little cafe that we ate at. We both had yummy salads.

More Luxembourg

Mikayla after she enjoyed her strawberry ice cream

This is definitely a country that I would like to explore a little more. On the way back to our apartment in Embken, we decided to drive up through the country of Luxembourg instead of the faster way on the autobahn that we had taken to get there. It was beautiful driving through the winding roads through the little villages and country side.