Ryan - crazy hair day

Ryan's school had crazy hair day.  He was a little apprehensive about the whole thing as he is new to all the school activities, but now that he has seen how crazy all of the other kids hair looked I think next year he will be more willing try something a little crazier!  It was pretty fun to see all of the kids and also see Ryan's hair all crazy!  By the end of the day, Ryan's hair had gone flat and quite a bit of the orange was gone! :)

Luxembourg - Sept 22-23

We always seem to push ourselves a bit when it comes to traveling here, but at the same time we feel like our time will go by so fast that we have to try and see as much as we can!  Plus we are definitely trying to see cities and countries that probably wouldn't be our destination when we come back to Europe one day.  So, on Saturday, after Friday at Legoland in Germany, we headed to Luxembourg for the night.  It is about a 3 hour drive from where we are.  Beautiful drive thru Belgium and the kids did really well in the car.  The city of Luxembourg is beautiful!  Lots of rolling hills with parts of the city built at the bottom of the hill and at the top.  So much history here and wealth!  I didn't realize how many countries fought for control of Luxembourg thru history (Romans, French, Dutch, Germans). The old churches, fortress walls, and buildings were beautiful.  It is a pretty easy city to walk, however there is quite a bit of elevation change, so not ideal with small children who are walking.  We didn't go down the hill too far as we knew Ryan would have to walk back up.  I was also a nervous wreck because the walls overlooking the cliffs weren't very tall and the kids kept wanting to peer over!  The old fortress area was a big hit for Ryan.

Our friend had told us about seeing/following the Valley of the 7 castles (in Luxembourg) drive on our way back to the Netherlands.  I didn't do much research before, but we googled it on our way out and tried to go to the first one.  However, this one wasn't easily marked (ie we couldn't find it :) ), so we gave up and just headed home.  These castles look beautiful, though. 

 Ryan admiring the view

 What is in this thing?

 View looking down from part of the fortress walls

 An old watch tower

 Ryan playing

Legoland -Duisburg

Ryan has been really getting into the next size up (small!!) legos and I had heard about this new Legoland Discovery center about an hour away from us in Germany.  Ryan had a Friday off of school, so Troy took the day off and we headed to Duisburg for the day.  This is a pretty small, industrial town, so nothing too exciting here other than legoland.  The kids had a lot of fun playing and building legos, looking at the creations built, and playing in the jungle gym.  It was a pretty small discovery center and Ryan's favorite part was building race cars and then racing them down the tracks.