Hiking in Nideggen

On Sunday, the last full day that Tony and Brenda were with us, we decided to try again to see Nideggen. The day started out cloudy and looked like it might rain, but soon cleared up and it was a beautiful day for a hike. So, we hopped in the cars and drove the short distance to Nideggen. We first walked through the town and up to the castle to see the sights there. Most of these are pictures that Brenda and Tony took with their cameras.

Entrance tower to the old part of the city of Nideggen

Tony sitting by the Nideggen city walls

Gates leading up to the castle in Nideggen

Church by the castle in Nideggen

The courtyard in the ruins of the castle in Nideggen

The walls of the castle

View from the castle out over the valley

Mikayla and I

Castle wall

Darren in the castle gate house

Tiles on the roof

After walking around and taking pictures of the castle, we went on a hike down the mountain into the valley below. We had heard about the hike from several people (including my brother Nate who had gone on a long run that included this part of the valley), so we were glad to finally be going on this hike. It was beautiful and definitely lived up to its reputation. We hiked down the mountain, through the valley for a bit, then up the mountain again to get back to the cars.

View down the path near where we started at the castle

View of the cliffs with the castle in the background

View of the cliffs with the valley below

Mikayla and I on the path

A view of the campground below in the valley. There isn't a lot of tent camping here in Germany.

A huge rock that we saw on the hike. When we walked around to the side of it, we saw that someone at sometime had built a wall up on one side of it. It made a little cave on one end.

A view of the path we took going back up to the cars

It was a good day for a hike, and it was a good way to close out our time with Brenda and Tony. We came back after the hike and had a relaxing evening with dinner at home and talking and exchanging pictures. We had a great time with them visiting and definitely hope to see them again soon. They left early in the morning on Monday morning to head back to England.

A shot of Mikayla with the wide-angle lens

Relaxing in Embken

After we got back from our trip down south to Heidelberg, Darren’s parents, Mikayla, and I took it easy for a couple of days back at our apartment while Darren had to go in to work. It was nice to be able to relax for a bit, get some laundry done, and just explore the area that we live in with them. We went on some walks and some bike rides, but mostly just relaxed.

Mikayla enjoying a toy at the park. She loves "scooters" and points them out whenever we pass one on the road, which happens a lot around here. She spent a lot of time riding this "scooter" in the park.

Nana Rose and Mikayla

Paul playing on the park structure

Mikayla loving the slide

Mikayla learning to climb up the slide. She made it all the way to the top by herself!

Mikayla smelling some wildflowers on a walk

Mikayla walking with Nana Rose

Mikayla getting ready to run with Nana Rose and Papa Paul

Settling In

It was a bit of work to settle into life here in Germany. We love our little apartment, which is much bigger and more than we expected, and we love our landlady, Mary, who speaks fairly good English and is very helpful. I just had underestimated how hard it would be to get a toddler to change her internal clock by 9 hours. I knew it would be hard, or thought I did, but it was much harder than I had anticipated, especially when I was dealing with jet lag myself. It was great that Darren didn't have to go to work right away, but was able to stay with us and help figure things out and help deal with a little girl who was miserably tired. It is hard enough to deal with jet lag as an adult when you understand the why of it, but it is even harder for a toddler to understand why we are telling her to go to sleep when she wants to be waking up and waking her up when she thinks she should be sleeping. It was the first or second night that we were here and I got woken up at 3 am with her popping her little head above the portable crib that she is sleeping in while she is here and loudly reciting all the words she knows. It took her a little over a week to really transition and start sleeping through the night. We are very thankful that part is over.

In order to get oriented here and also to let Mikayla have time to get settled here, we stuck around Embken for the most part for the first week we were here. We went on many long walks. This is a very rural area with lots of farms growing wheat, corn, peas, and other things that I am not sure of. There are little villages that are dotted all over the place here, and there are paths and trails that lead between all of them. It has been fun to be able to explore the area like this. Once we locate a bike seat for Mikayla, we hope to do even more exploring by bike. In the mean time, though, we are enjoying being able to get out and walk when the weather is nice. On the first weekend we were here, we were up really early because we still hadn't adjusted to the time change. I think that we were all up and had eaten breakfast and were ready to go by 7 am. So, we went on what ended up being almost a 3 hour walk. There was a lake that we wanted to go see, and then we just kept exploring. Here is a picture of one of the trails we were walking on.

The village we are in is very quaint. Sometimes when I am walking around looking at all the buildings here or in one of the little nearby villages, it is hard to believe that I am actually here. Our village has a little church in the center of it that chimes the hours on the steeple bells, has windy little roads that twist and turn and never really go straight, and most of the buildings were not built in this century or the last. The house we are staying in was built in 1631, although I think it is the oldest around here. Here are a few pictures of our village.