My Two Brothers

Last week was a week for my brothers. While my older brother, Nate, was here visiting me in Germany, my younger brother, Josh, was at his home in Canada celebrating his 30th birthday. It is crazy to think that none of us were in the country that we were born in. Nate and I were able to talk to Josh via Skype a day or two (depending on whose time you were talking about) before his actual birthday, so at least we were able to partially celebrate with him. It was sad not to be able to be there with Josh to celebrate this milestone birthday, but hopefully we can make it up to him.

I don't actually have a picture of Josh here on my computer (most of our pictures are on the computer we left back home in Oregon), but here is one of him and his superdog Zeke that I borrowed from the web page of his lovely wife, Tonya. Since she takes excellent pictures, I thought it would be a good one to post here.


For Nate's last day here, we went to the town of Aachen. I wanted to take him to the great little toy store I had found when Darren's parents were here, and also let him experience the town. We had a good lunch of Italian food at a little cafe just down the street from the Aachen cathedral. It is interesting to blend what little I know of Italian with what little I know of German and try to order Italian food in Germany. It is good that the waiter also spoke English so that we didn't have to rely on my language skills. I am slowly picking up bits of the German language, but not enough yet to be able to converse.

Aachen Cathedral

After we left Aachen, Nate, Mikayla, and I drove back to Düren to pick Darren up from work before heading back to Embken. We dropped Mikayla and Darren off at the apartment, picked up Nate's bags, and then headed back out on the road to go to Frankfurt. Nate had booked a hotel in Frankfurt on Monday night so that it would make getting to the airport on Tuesday easier and also let him explore a little of Frankfurt before leaving the country. It was a long drive there and back, but worth it. I am so glad that Nate was able to come and visit us and that we could spend some good time reconnecting with him.