Europa Park

Actual Date of this event: Friday, July 12

We decided we have done a lot of trips throughout Germany, some Alps and a little Austria, all of which were not necessarily kid oriented. We have seen several castles, which Trey liked so Much we bought the German castle pass, good for something like 65 castles as many times as you like through the year. We have gone hiking through the alps and been to several different restaurants and cities, which the kids have enjoyed but not really centered around them.
So.........we decided we would take them to Europa Park, Europe's second largest amusement park, next to EuroDisney. We actually question now if we need EuroDisney, way better things to see in Paris, especially when you have Europa Park.
We took a 3 hour train ride directly to the park which was AWESOME!!! Love love not having to drive everywhere. One of our trains was even a double decker, which the kids thought was so cool.
They were so excited that we actually made the 630am train with our fresh croissants from the bakery full of Nutella, very yummy.
Europa Park is located on the German/France border and is basically a town all it's own and the park was huge. We were immediately bummed that we didn't plan to spend the weekend, now we must return soon, thinking Halloween time:)
This park was incredible, like being at Disney, everything was pristine and there was an ABBA show and I love ABBA!
We rode rides EXACTLY like Space Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Haunted Mansion. Anyone that knows us well knows that we are Disney freaks and go at least once a year so this gave us our fix, especially with the rides. We actually started wondering if Disney owned a portion of this park, but we really do not think so.
If you visit us in the Summer and love amusement parks this is a definite for your list.
After a long fun day we made it back home around midnight.
Only cons about this park were the food! But..... you could bring yourown and everyone did. We brought our favorite salami and gruyere cheese on brotchens with us for lunch but later needed something and everything was meh! AND e worst part , NO fudge, seriously an amusement park with no fudge????? And not any chocolate bars in sight!!! Darn Germans, what is that about???
Totally random but thought it was neat that you don't stand in a bag check line, crime is so ridiculously minuscule that they do NOT check your bags! Bring drink, food, whatever! And oddly enough that is pretty much the norm in Germany. Everyone is eating their sandwiches everywhere you go because the breads are to die for, especially the pretzel roll.

Other events of the week:
Our car arrived!! Hooray!!! Now to take the driving test:(
I put it off twice because Billy said it was so hard I was paranoid but this Monday I decided I don't care in going to try. This required a 3 1/2 hour class then the test with 110 questions, you can only miss 15 and ALL the laws are totally different! I was shaking in this test but woohoo!!!! I passed, I missed 14!!! Funny thing is the US government registers our car in the overseas country you are located in and without this license you can drive rentals your first 6 months here but can never drive your own car without this license so it's kind of important.
What else????? I finally made it to the gym today and went to a boot camp class with Blair and my friend Liz. Pretty rough, especially considering I hurt my left shoulder when I slid down a flight of stairs in our home on July 3:( I am ok but 3 different types of push-ups throughout the hour was rough.
On a good note though, Billy is on a baseball team and we were all at his game tonight to witness his grand slam ! His team won 15-0
Tomorrow we are headed to the pool with friends and then a biergarten on Friday with Billy's coworkers, so everyday is pretty much FUNday:)
And on Sunday there was a high wire act at the base. It's a group that travels the world and they were nothing short of amazing. One guy stood up on a 65 meter bending pole and played star spangled banner on a trumpet while swaying. Look close at pics below!!

Sorry this is so long just trying to catch everyone up on what we are doing here in the land of beer and pretzels:)