Our Trip To Hamburg

So, over Easter weekend, we took a trip up north. We drove 4 hours to Hamburg, Germany. Gardner had a companion from his mission that lives up there, so we went to visit him. Gardner had not seen him in over 15 years. Gardner kept saying he wondered what the grown up Elder Volz was like. And we found out.

We got there Saturday night around 7pm. We actually drove into town earlier. Perhaps as early as 6pm. But we were looking all around for some flowers. It is a thing here in Germany to always show up places with flowers. I did not think the flowers would survive the trip with so many kids in such a crowded van for such a long period of time. But, since it was Easter the next day, everything was closed. We looked and looked and looked and ended up showing up without flowers.

Elder Volz is married and has 4 kids. One is 14, 12, 8 and 5 months old. Their kids got along GREAT with our kids. That was so nice to see. And of course, Shantal was happy to hear that they had no dogs. We did not find out ahead of time and so she was real worried about that.

On Easter, it was definately a non-traditional easter for us. There was no Easter Bunny that came, no Easter Dinner. We went to church in the morning and then they had a potluck lunch at the church afterwards. We ended up leaving before the Volz's and went to see a Castle in Ahrensburg. Emma and Ian both fell asleep in the van, so Gardner stayed with them while I walked around the castle with the older 3 kids.

We went back to the Volz's house and decided to go on a walk in the forest which was right across the street from their house. Once we got further into the forest, Mariam, the mom and I hide chocolate. The kids all had fun looking for it. Unfortunately, my camera battery died right before this and I got no pictures.

We were going to do a big Fire Monday before we left but we ended up with Rain. Gardner helped fix their computer in the morning and we stayed for lunch. Before we headed home, we got some pictures from another Castle, in Tremsbuettel. And we also found flowers and took them back to their house as a thank you.

That same 4 hour car ride took 6 1/2 hours to get home. We did stop for lunch at one point. But the biggest problem was traffic. There was so much. And once we got going, we really were moving. Can you imagine how long of a trip it would of been had I had to go 65 miles an hour the whole way? I love the autobahn and the no speed limit! I drove part way home and I personally got up to 105 miles per hour. And yes, cars were STILL passing me by.

We had a good time and hope to go back sometime. I'd love to see more things and do more things up in that area. But because our trip was so short and it was Easter, there was no time for other things.

I did make a video of our time up there. There is a link to our Hamburg, Germany video to the right under Our Family Videos. Just click on the one you want to see.