Lake Titisee - Germany

From our B&B in the Black Forest, we took a day tip Lake Titisee. We had anticipated a nice hot day for swimming, but discovered that it is a very windy area which made it too cold to swim. So instead we rented a boat to explore the lake. 

Our captain

View of the town from our boat

Of course, it is never too cold for Jack to get in the water so he spent a good while throwing rocks and splashing around.

Jack couldn't resist a trip on the Ferris wheel

Waiting in line

As Luke and Jack were on the ferris wheel, a steady stream of antique cars pulled into the parking lot for a car show

Scootering around town

We stopped to let Jack jump for a while on the trampoline ride

He was trying desperately to do flips, but never got all the way around without someone helping him

More scootering

Views of the countryside

Lake Titisee

Best buds

After spending the day at the lake, Jack was tired but still wanted to swim since we had told him we would be swimming this day. Next to the lake we found a huge indoor water park so we decided to go for the rest of the afternoon. Part of it was set up for adults and the other half was where the kids could run wild

The "adult" part with nice warm water

View of the entrance to the adult pool

Lounge chairs 

In the kids area there were several slides for Jack

I preferred the adult pool since it was warmer and I didn't have to worry so much about little feet kicking me. I spent a good amount of time relaxing here. There was even a door on the pool so you could swim outside

Jack liked the spa bubbles in the adult pool

They even had a swim up bar where we could enjoy some drinks

Jack wanted to go back in to the kids pool after a while, so he and Luke went off and I was able to sit and relax for a while.

Lily's first trip to the water park

It was a great day, but I have to say that it is so frustrating to not be able to go on the fun "thrill" slides. I can't wait until Jack and Lily are old enough to be able to enjoy all the adventurous rides with me :-)  

Freiburg im Breisgau - Germany

This past weekend we drove two hours to spend a few days in the Black Forest region of Germany. We found a very family friendly bed and breakfast right outside the city of Freiburg im Breisgau. The B&B was family run and there were always tons of little ones around. They also had a great restaurant that we ate at one night. 

Our room was huge and very comfortable.

Hotel playground

Of the five days we spent in the area, we made it to the Freiburg city center 4 of the days. We absolutely loved this city.

The old city walls and towers were in great condition

This has to be the coolest location
of any McDonalds

Inside the city center was closed to traffic

Jack loved playing in the canals that ran all inside the city

After seeing several kids with boats, we finally found the boat vendor and Jack got his own pirate ship to float in the canals

Jack was so enthralled with his new boat that he spent several hours walking it up and down the same canal. Luke and I made good use of the time and enjoyed some drinks and ice cream at an outside cafe

We spent most of our time in the wide open space surrounding the Freiburg Munster. This was a really impressive church and I read that it is the only Gothic church tower in Germany that was completed in the Middle Ages that has survived until present day.

During the bomb raids on Freiburg in 1944 all of the houses around the Munster were destroyed, but miraculously the tower survived.

One of the days we were able to go to the local farmer's market in the Munster square

Luke bought his very own scooter on this trip and it was great watching him and Jack scooter around the city together. Jack was so excited that he had someone to scooter with!

One day we took a funicular up the mountain to a restaurant that we were recommended to go to and try their cakes. Honestly, I did't think the cakes were all that great, but it was a fun excursion

Restaurant Dattler

A view of Freiburg from the top of the mountain

Instead of taking the funicular back down, we thought it would be fun to ride the scooters down. But the hill was a little too steep for Jack and he lost control and fell forward on his scooter so his belly was on the footboard and his knees/legs were dragging behind him on the gravel and he skidded down the mountain for several feet. It was actually terrifying to watch because Luke was ahead of him and didn't see it, and I was too far behind to do anything about it. As soon as I saw him lose control, I tried running to help him, but at this point I can barely waddle along so I was completely helpless. Thankfully he did not get too hurt. Just a couple scrapped knees, but  he was very shook up.

The poor guy must have cried for an hour. Luke had to carry him all the way back down the mountain and in to town where we tried to calm him down but nothing was working. Until finally, Jack agreed that some band-aids would help, so we took him to the pharmacy to pick out some band-aids.

It's amazing what a band-aid can do!

After that incident, it took Jack a little while to get back on his scooter again so we walked around town. Another thing I really liked about this town is that there is so much to look at. Not only are the buildings really impressive, but even the sidewalks have designs on them throughout the entire city

I have to mention again how much I love the pedestrian cities. Even though a few cars and trams run through Freiburg, it is mostly car free and Jack is free to roam the streets

We were in heaven with the amount of food choices here in Freiburg. In Switzerland, not only is the food outrageously expensive, but there is really not much diversity. But here in Freiburg, we saw everything from Mexican to Indian to Thai food, and they were all at least half the cost of the Swiss restaurants.

Luke is thrilled about finding a
delicious Thai food restaurant

Best Thai food we have had in years

Another night we found a delicious
Indian food restaurant.

We were pleasantly surprised with the town of Freiburg. We had originally planned to only spend an afternoon here, but we liked it so much we went back almost every day of our trip. And the great thing is that it is only two hours from our house so driving up for the weekend is something we would love to do more often. I forgot to mention it earlier, but one of the days we were walking the city we stumbled upon a HUGE electronics store similar to Luke's favorite store "Fry's" back in California. Luke spent a good hour roaming the store while I sat on the massage chairs. The prices in this store were less than half the cost of the same electronics here in Switzerland so I can see us planning another trip to Freiburg for our next major electronics purchase...