Day Trip: Idar-Oberstein & Gemstone Mines

Last Saturday was a beautiful day to go Jeep-ing, so Greg planned for us to take a trip out to Idar-Oberstein. Greg frequently makes trips to another military base further west of us that requires him to drive through several small towns. That's how he discovered Idar-Oberstein, the capital of gemstone mining in Germany. It also happens to have the only gemstone mines in Europe open to the public. When we were dating, it became somewhat of a tradition of ours to collect gemstones from different places we visited, so it was fitting that we visit the Steinkaulenberg gemstone mine while living in Germany.

Did I mention there is a church built directly into the side of the mountain?

Day Trip: Triberg & the Black Forest

It's been a pretty busy week in our home! One of Greg's friends from growing up and his wife came to visit for the week while they were touring Germany. Last weekend was a "4 day", so it gave us all time to hang out before I went back to work. Greg took the week off to show his friends around for a few extra days.

Most of the day trips we took were to places Greg and I had already visited before. The only exception was Saturday, when we took the Jeep down to Triberg in the heart of the Black Forest.

Tulip Season in Holland: Amsterdam, Zaanse Schans, Voldendam and the Keukenhof gardens

Next on the blogging agenda is our trip to Holland for tulip season! Spring time is the peak of tourism for the Netherlands because of their world famous tulip fields and gardens. If you've scrolled through the travel boards of Pinterest, you've probably stumbled across at least one beautiful picture of a big wooden windmill surrounded by colorful fields striped with tulips as far as the eye can see. Of course, we had to be one of the millions worldwide who venture to Holland from mid-March to mid-May to check out the Keukenhof tulip gardens. We had a lot of fun, but I will say that it was a good reminder that when you're traveling, sometimes you have to accept that expectations do not equal reality.

Day Trip: Cochem and Reichsburg, Germany

In the past few weeks, it finally getting sunny and warm outside! This glimpse of spring time sadly did not last long before it started raining every single day. Of course, in a month it will be burning hot and neither our house nor work have air conditioning, so we have to enjoy the weather before it turns miserable again. Several weekends ago, we drove to Cochem with some friends of ours to get out of the house and explore somewhere new.

Bad Blogger

It's true, I've been pretty horrible at updating recently. Within the next week, I hope to finish 3 posts that I'm drafting about our recent adventures. I swear I didn't completely give up blogging, but we've just been extremely busy!

As a sneak peak of what is to come, here is a picture of a giant pig made out of flowers.

Does it creep you out? If not, it probably should. That thing is terrifying.