Way we knew we were in Germany:

• R offered salami pizza as an option along with the more traditional pepperoni or cheese when we played restaurant at the park.

• Appliances are energy efficient, which really means it takes twice as long to wash a smaller load of clothes. Reality means we’re washing at least one load of clothes a day. The joy of a family of six.

The family at the big fountain…really, that’s what they call it.

• The Zoo has amazing parks for the kids. J here: it has an awesome water slide. There are three slides. #2 & 3 are great because they feel like you’re going to die. They have lots of turns and fly when you’re on the inner-tubes. R here: it also has red, bouncy houses. They’re half circles…getting on them was impossible in the rain.

• Each day involves an explore. But we’ve found some wonderful things on those explores including the shellacked slides with climbing walls.

fountain at the gardens…

• The public transportation gets us most places we want to go in town. Now we have to decide what other side trips we want to take. With two weekends in a row out of town, we’ll have two or three left we can travel if we want to. Possibly a day trip to Hamburg. Maybe a trip up to one of the North Sea Islands.

Kids goofing off with Super Hero poses.