German-American Volksfest, Camp Kasserine, Germany

You never can be sure, but this very well might be our last German-American Volksfest EVER!  What?  It seems like we just got here!  We are approaching the four year anniversary of moving to Germany though, and we always said we would stay about five years.  So it's possible by this time next year, we won't live here anymore. I can't even imagine that.  A huge part of me never wants to leave.  A very small part of me wants to go back to Massachusetts.  There is so much I will miss here.

But the German American Volksfest will be one of the things I miss the most!

I think these little stinkers will miss it, too.

We were barely on the fest grounds when the kids were already begging to go on rides. But we needed to eat first.  When we sat down to eat, we saw the Blacknall family walk by, so they joined us for lunch and a beer.  Of course, then the kids wanted to take off and ride rides with their friends!  We spent a solid hour and a half hanging out there.  Plus, it was Friday so it was half price rides all day!  At some point, Grant came back and wanted to ride rides with me rather than hang with the middle school crowd, so we rode our favorite fast ride (it's like the Matterhorn from the county or state fairs in America!)



Jessica Blacknall (Lily's mom) took this great picture of the girls before they took off again to ride the rides with their friends (and drink bubble tea!)

So Little buddy and I took off to ride the rides together - we also rode the tall swings (eeek!  They weren't super tall though thankfully!)

Next we rode these really cool butterfly swings that went up and down. It was my favorite ride at the whole Volksfest!

We really had so much fun on this ride!

Every year, there's always this stage set up with people line dancing.  Like I've died and gone back to Alabama!

A lot of the units set up tents and sell burgers and hot dogs and other foods in order to make money.  They get awards for the most creative - I liked this guy the best!

Natalie rejoined us and decided she wanted to ride the SUPER FUN RIDE.  The weight of both of these kids literally crushed me ha ha.

The kids and I then rode the spinning coaster.  I got the lucky seat across from a girl from her school that she calls her arch nemesis... this girl was so funny... screamed the whole time and then swaggered off the ride saying, "It was okay."

Natalie had played a game with her friends earlier and won a rainbow llama, so naturally Grant wanted to play too.  Of course, they called this, "Alexi's game" after the Russian guy in Stranger Things who rocked this game in the TV show.

Grantie, sporting the new donut that he won at the game above ate some gummy candies (it's about all he can have for sweets at these things because of his allergy) while listening to the wife of a guy I used to work with at AFN sing with her band.  They were really good!

OK Mommy.  Time to ride the butterfly swings one more time!  It's actually called the Hawaii swing, as you can see on the left but we didn't like that name!

Grant rode by himself so I could ride with my girl!

Next up was the fun house, Gaudi Max.  Look at that concentration!

The skies began to get dark, so we decided to leave for the day. 

Oooo but wait, lemme snap one more pic of my favorite ride at Volksfest!

Because Daddy was TDY in Virginia on Friday, and then Natalie went to Girl Scout camp on this day (Sunday - thanks Joanna!) we decided to go to the last day of the German American Volksfest - this time, not in costume.

Todd got to ride the crazy coaster with Grant!

And then he was kind enough to ride the high swings again, cause you know I can only handle so much of that.

It looked like it was gonna crack lightning at any second as Todd and Grant rode the swings.  Also... those creepy mannequins on top of the Kasse. 

Todd doesn't love this ride, and you know Grant and I love it, so we rode it again!  Look at Grant - he's totally faking this picture!

Then the three of us rode the Butterfly swings!

Todd: "Let's get Grant a soft serve and let's get ourselves some beers!"

Yup.

Better.

We didn't visit the tanks and helicopters on Friday, so Grant was excited to see them on Sunday.  Halt!  1 kilometers to German Democratic Republic (East Germany) Do Not Proceed Without Authority.

Grant got to climb all over this VERY impressive Panzerhaubitze 2000!

Me:  Grant, do you know what kind of tank this is?  (Hasn't even seen the sign)  Grant: Yeah, it's a Panzer.

Of course he knew that.

A new feature (at least as far as I can remember) is the Chinook helicopter!

Grant, hanging out on a Chinook helicopter.

"Grant, do you think you could fly this thing?"  "Sure, it's just like on my video games!"

Daddy and Grant, hanging out in front of a Chinook helicopter. We see these flying overhead every now and then.

Grant decided he wanted to drive one of these massive military vehicles.

I'm not sure if you can see them, but Grant and Daddy are driving this super tall military truck.

Since we don't have many more fests in our German future, we decided we needed ONE MORE fest bier!

I think we ate at this place all four years we were here.

You're going to find this very strange... but I took a picture of the port-a-potty.  Why?  Because look!  It's clean, you can actually flush it (not seen... the flusher is on the wall above), it has a toilet bowl cleaner and plenty of toilet paper.  Hooray for German port-a-potties!

Grant wanted to ride the spinny coaster one more time.  Almost every photo of me did not show my face... only a mess of hair.

Grant almost looks bored in some of these pictures ha ha.

Or he looks diabolical. And I look like... hair.

We raided the swagger tent before we left. We went a little overboard.

I really hope this isn't our last German-American Volksfest... even if it means I return in 20 years!

Until next time, German-American Volksfest!

Aquapalace, Prague, Czech Republic

Temperatures in Germany were heating up.  Todd went TDY to Virginia, and since we don't have central air conditioning (I mean, no one really does!), I knew I had to take the kids and get out of here.  Temps were forecast to be in the mid to upper 90s.  No thanks!

I waffled back and forth on where to go.  Perhaps a couple of nights near Lucerne and Interlaken in Switzerland.  But I couldn't find anything affordable.  I thought about maybe a night or two in Lake Constance.  But it was going to be just as brutally hot there as it was in Auerbach.  So at the advice of my friend Mary, I decided to take the kids to the biggest water park in Czech Republic - the Aquapalace!

But one does not simply "go to the Aquapalace for a few hours."  Especially if you live 3 hours away.  It's on the southeast side of Prague - not really anywhere near the city.  So we left the day before and arrived in the very late afternoon.  We stayed at a little bed and breakfast about 2 minutes away from the park (you can stay at the park, but it's a lot more expensive, even though they do provide you with passes to the park.)  We walked down to Pizzeria Grosseto for some yummy pizza!

We knew we had to get up kind of early for our big day at the Aquapalace, but I need a Makers and Coke before bed.  I know you guys probably think I'm this crazy strong mom who just takes off for Prague with her kids for a few days and is unafraid of anything, but truthfully, I do have a lot of anxiety when I travel without Todd.  Not because I'm not competent, but because I have two kids and only one set of eyes.  I went down to the bar to get a couple of Coke Zero's and they said, "We don't have that but we do have Royal Crown Cola!"  What the what?  First of all... am I back in Mississippi?  Second of all, where is my banana moon pie????  Bonus points that it was slim though.

But now, for the main event!  The Aquapalace!  It's the biggest water park in all of the Czech Republic!

We really loved the 450 meter lazy river that flowed throughout the inside part of the park.  The water was only a couple of degrees cooler than I like (you know my standards) so I sucked it up and had fun letting the water send us from one part of the park to the other.

In case I was second guessing coming here... nope.  The Aquapalace is SO much fun, and this was what the temp was at home.  I can only imagine what it felt like upstairs in my house.

If you like water slides, you MUST visit the Aquapalace.  There are 12 slides of varying levels.  We rode a couple that I didn't get any pictures of but were wicked fun, like the triple person tube slide called the Crazy Tube (we all rode together!) and the psychedelic Torpedo Toboggan.  There was also this CRAZY ride called the Canyon, which started inside... paused just outside of the building so you could choose to exit the slide, or you could keep going and the slide then became the Wild River, which was entirely outdoors.  It reminded me of the one at Tropical Islands, but I hurt my bum bum on the Wild River, so I only went on it once.  Natalie went a few times though!  The slides in the picture above are considered one slide - it's of course called the "Speed Slide." 

Here they come!  Grant took off before Natalie, hence why he won.

I think Natalie had a bigger splash, though!

The kids got in line for the Magic Tube a few times.  You could ride this ride with a tube, or without. If you paid a few more koruna, you could do the ride with virtual reality goggles.  If you wanted the VR goggles, you had to use the tube though (no just laying on your back.)  If you decide to use the VR goggles, you also must choose whether you want "space" or "sky."  We, of course, did both.  I think I liked the sky one better.  But it was SUPER trippy.

We all really loved the yellow Body Slide.  I think I rode this like 4 times!  A couple of the slides we DIDN'T ride were the Kamikaze (we watched people slam into the walls as they came down the slide and it didn't seem appealing to anyone) and the Space Bowl.  Grant has never been a fan of the bowl slides since our visit to Therme Erding in Munich.

We also loved this much warmer pool in between the slide area and the lazy river area. You can see behind the kids there were these giant fish tanks and you felt like you were swimming with the fishies!

The kids also spent a few minutes in the hot tub before we headed upstairs to grab some dinner.

Interestingly, they had a tank that you could learn how to scuba dive!

We went upstairs to grab some dinner before we left, and they had a little balcony where you could overlook the outdoor facilities.  It definitely seemed more geared toward adults with the swim up pool bars and loud music. There's fun for all ages at the Aquapalace!

They had a steel drum band playing music and I just wanted to dive into the pool from way up above and join everyone.

But alas, I'm a mom and I had to get these kiddos back to the hotel where I knew they were going to crash because we ALL were tired.  We really had a blast there today, but we definitely missed Daddy.  Natalie said later, "This place is awesome!  But I think one day is enough."  (This is how tired we were!)

Until next time, Aquapalace!