Ugh…. As the end of our vacation nears, I’m trying not to think about the fact that we’ll soon have to say goodbye to this gorgeous city. We’ve without a doubt been living in a vacation bubble, and I’ve been loving it.
Today, after coffees and pastries, we crossed another big to-do off of our list – skating on the outdoor rink at the base of the castle! Sadly, Miss G wasn’t all that thrilled with the actual skating part of it, though she did love her little penguin friend. We finished off the day with an afternoon walk and a visit to the park and came home with that amazing feeling only a day outside in the cool fresh air can give you.
Despite the rain, we bundled up, walked the 40 minutes to Hauptstaße, and then hiked up the steep cobblestone hill {Brad pushing G in her stroller, bless his heart} to Schloss Heidelberg (aka Heidelberg Castle) today. Miss G wasn’t at her best and it undoubtedly would have been more fun on a day that it wasn’t pouring rain, but my goodness – was it ever fascinating to roam around a castle as old as this one, soaking in little bits of the history.
Here’s a peek at Miss G’s first ever castle visit…
Besides a Christmas Brad and I spent at Railay Beach a few years back while I was {unknowingly} pregnant with Miss G, this year’s Christmas was probably our most non-traditional. Our tree was a house plant strung with baubles. Our turkey dinner was dinner out at a restaurant. Our usual snow was rain. And our family members came in the form of Grandma Charlotte arriving on our doorstep this morning and surprising the heck out of Miss G (a definite highlight of the day). Different isn’t necessarily a bad thing – in fact, it was a really lovely day and I’m absolutely thrilled we got to spend our first Christmas away as a family of 3 here in Heidelberg – it just would have been that much better with all of our family members here, of course.
Our day started at 5:40 a.m. when Miss G awoke raring to get the day going. We opened stockings in our dimly lit living room, made a big breakfast together, and Brad announced that he had to go for a quick trip to the store shortly afterwards. Of course, he wasn’t going to the store, but to the train station to meet his mom and help her back to our flat to surprise Gracen. It felt like he was back in no time at all, and when he arrived, he opened the door and announced, ‘Look at what I found while I was out!’ He stepped out of the way to reveal Grandma Charlotte with her suitcases in tow and Gracen’s flapping, hopping, and shrieking began. The first words out of her mouth were, ‘What in the WOR-WOLD?!?’ and then she later declared it the ‘Best. day. EVER.’ Gracen helped unpack her suitcase full of all sorts of Canadian goodies and opened a string of never-ending gifts. The rest of our day consisted of a long walk in the rain, a playground stop, naps for everyone in the house, dinner out, and an early bedtime for all of us.
For some reason or another, I ended up giving my DSLR a bit of a break today, I don’t have a ton of photos and several of these are from my phone, but here’s our day in pictures…
The stockings were placed by the house plant with care…
