Ronneberg Christmas Market

After hitting up the Heidelberg market Nick and I decided to drive up to Ronneberg, which is just 20 minutes past Frankfurt.

It was by the cutest little tradition town with the most gorgeous view.

It was a very cold day and towards the end it started raining but luckily we spent most of the time inside the castle.

It wasn't a castle like Heidelberg, this one was used for soldiers and not for royalty to live in.

To get up to the top of the tower you had to make five full rotations up the staircase then climb up two sets of these steep stairs. I have to say, going down carrying Kaelyn was one of the starriest things I have ever done, I was so worried I would slip and fall.

The Christmas market from the tower

 

This kids had a blast playing with of the old fashioned toys and tools, especially the swing which was a battle to get them away from.

A few from atop the castle

After we explored the castle it had gotten much colder so we started to make our way back out to glance through the booths outside then head on home. Nick found these really cool candle holders, and this is the one I picked out.

On our way our I spotted St. Nicholas so I grabbed William and we ran up to say hi. He got a piece of candy then I stepped back to get a picture and he thought I was leaving him. The guy was nice enough to stoop down to get into the picture but it has to be the saddest picture with St Nicholas every recorded.

In the square there were some musicians playing period instruments, I thought they were very talented.

Heidelberg Christmas Market

 A couple of weeks before Christmas this kids and I went with some people from the ward to a couple of Christmas markets in Heidelberg.

As we waited outside of the tram station for everyone else in our group we heard this big crash. William was standing by the wall with a chunk missing from it. We all laughed and said that it was already broken just waiting for an unsuspecting boy to come by so that it could fall. That was just the start of people pointing and laughing at William that day.

  One of the booths had a fire going and was smoking fish. William has been really obsessed with fire lately so he was so excited to go up and look. As the wind shifted the heavy smoke blew right at him and, naturally, he started coughing pretty dramatically. All of the Germans thought that was pretty funny.

There were lots of other kids there so William had a blast running around with them.

This was the first market we had ever been to, and we loved it. We found this Reindeer made from sticks that I just loved and William wanted to carry it so bad, mixing that with his love and chasing birds was a bad combination.

There are booths selling everything you can imagine, one bar was even set up like a tradition windmill covered in lights.

We all had so much fun, staying almost an hour longer than everyone else along with our friends that rode up with us.

We added the reindeer to our decorations in the hallway to protect our house.

Tree Lighting

They had a tree lighting on post along with games one things for the kids.

We bundled the kids up, and headed out for some good old family time.

William saw the games and of course just had to throw the bean bags!

The kids had fun, inside they had a bounce house that Kaelyn was too little for, and William was too nervous to go in, so they mainly ran around with the other kids or climbed on the stairs.

However this was their first year seeing Santa, and although William cares more about his candy cane, and Kaelyn has no idea what is going on, neither one cried so I call that a success!

Decorating for Christmas

My favorite thing about Thanksgiving is that it means I can finally decorate for Christmas!

William has always loved helping me decorate, and this year he was big enough to help with most things.

He helped do the bottom half of the tree and it looked beautiful.

Kaelyn just enjoyed eating them.

It's always interesting decorating in a new house. Figuring out where to put things, where they will look the best and this was the biggest challenge we have ever had.

This year the only place we had to put lights was on our balcony so they are on the verge of tacky and gaudy, but what can I say, I like my lights.

Since our space to decorate is limited inside, I have taken it upon myself do decorate our stairwell as well. I don't usually make it any farther than just the next floor down, but it gets cheerier and cheerier as you make your way up till our apartment and are then smacked in the face with a winter wonder land.

Heidelberg

 It was freezing Thanksgiving weekend but we figured we would brave the cold and go experience a part of Germany.

Heidelberg is a town about an hour away so we packed the kids up and headed down there.

With the first structure being built in 1214 this castle was considered the most important North of the Alps.

The castle was partially destroyed three times, two because of lightning bolts and once because of a nine year war.

It is a very old castle, so naturally some natural decay has occurred and you can see where portions of it have literally just broken in half.

There were some gorgeous sights, even in the blandness of early winter. Every year to celebrate the castles history they have a ceremony called "Lighting of the Castle" where they have lights and fireworks and perform a light show symbolic of the castle being burned down.

On the inner walls of the courtyard they have statues made of all of the Kings and Queens, hundreds of them. Naturally we had to include ourselves.

Despite the cold it was a fun day, we had tickets to go on the guided tour, but we got there so late the kids were tired and hungry and it didn't last more than ten minutes.

We will return one day when it is warmer, and with full children.

This is a wine barrel that is probably 3 people tall, they really liked their wine then!