Our weekend in Bonn

So I haven't posted nearly enough pictures of Germany, have I! We got a visitor's pass for the city that we are living in, Bonn, last weekend and visited a lot of really neat places. The visitor's pass gets you into a lot of museums and places for free or reduced price and it was perfect. (Minus the whole Joshua-not-wanting-to-set-foot-or-stroller-inside-a-museum thing)

FRIDAY

Friday we spent most of the day in Koenigswinter, a little tourist town across the river from us. We spent an hour or so in the Aquarium there-Joshua was definitely a fan.



Then we headed up the "mountain" on this old school train to see the ruins of an old castle, Drachenfels. Here is what it looked like a long time ago...



Here is what it looks like now!




But what you REALLY paid for was the view. Gorgeous. We just sat up there for an hour or so just taking in the scenery. (It helped that Joshua had fallen asleep in his stroller...)





In the evening we tried to go to an art museum, but that lasted all of about 20 minutes with Joshua. Oh well. We tried, right?

SATURDAY

We started out the morning going to the Fleumarkt here in Bonn--otherwise known as a flea market. We were told it was huge, it only happens once a month. Honestly, we don't even know HOW big it was, because it was too big to walk through all of it! It was a garage-saler's paradise. No joke. My picture doesn't even BEGIN to capture half of the tents that were set up...it looked like it went on for miles!



Here are our meager purchases: A hacky sack for Joshua and a wooden spoon for Justin and I. The spoon is made out of olive wood and the sellers had tons of other wood products. Cutting boards, pestle and mortar, bowls...and they were so beautiful. But we decided a spoon would do for us. We actually need a new wooden spoon anyway. :)



We got some crepes with nutella on them from a little vendor and everyone could tell that Joshua enjoyed his. We of course also had to let him out to play by the water fountain. He is beginning to love water (rivers, water fountains, etc., not just a bottle of water) as much as fans!




On the way over to the central part of Bonn, Joshua was SO close to falling asleep, we decided to walk around and look at the shops in hopes that we could get him asleep before we went to any museums. Fat chance. No sleeping for him on Saturday. We decided even if we didn't get to all of the places we'd hoped, we would at least make it to the Beethoven House.

Beethoven was born in Bonn and they have his birthplace preserved and have lots of artifacts from his life-original manuscripts, one of his pianos, his viola...pretty amazing!




I was pretty much the only one who got to spend some quality time inside. Justin spent quality time outside with Joshua driving his cars. Thanks sweetheart. :)




SUNDAY

So we missed church all together on Sunday. Since Joshua had a bad nap day Saturday, we decided we would let him sleep and just go to Sacrament meeting. But we missed the bus, and the buses only come once an hour, so...we had our own church while Joshua was napping. It actually turned out to be really good. We watched Elder Bednar's Young Adult fireside that he gave on March 3rd. Seriously, it was one of the best talks I have heard in a long time, I recommend it to EVERYONE. I think I need to watch it a few more times myself...

Then we took the train to Bruhl, which is a little city/village about 15-20 miles away. There is a big "Schloss" there, which is translated to be "castle" in English, but we think the word "Schloss" is more like mansion. It's technically a castle I guess, but one built in the last couple hundred years. This huge victorian mansion was BEAUTIFUL!



We didn't go inside because it is an hour long tour. We figured the other people who paid to go in would enjoy it much more without a shrieking almost 2-year old. How can you be sure he would be shrieking, you ask? Because we would have had to leave the "wa-wa" outside...



This is a view from the woods that surround the house. There were walking trails and so many big trees. It felt like Virginia!



And then a couple of pictures of Joshua's new favorite past-time: pushing the stroller. He is actually quite good, but gets frustrated quickly if it runs into something. He learning to sign "help" instead of shrieking, so that's good. This is also another reason he doesn't like museums, because we have to put him IN the stroller. He would MUCH rather be behind it!




Now if you made it through all of THAT, I am impressed!