Family dinner in downtown Berlin!

After departing our au pair's home, we all loaded in the car for a road trip to Berlin. We settled into a downtown hotel which Paul booked on a deal website. It must have been a deal because we were put into the "Mood Room". Talk about sketchy! The room was lined in lights and with a touch of the button on the iPad it transformed into underwater colors or a disco room. I think it was more a honeymoon suite that we all jammed into. Haha, it was epic. At one point I simply tried turning on the lights in the bathroom overnight and music started blasting, the lights went crazy, and the curtains automatically opened. I was scrambling to try to fix my mistake before the boys woke up. Unfortunately, we only got one night in the "Mood Room" and moved down to the second floor family room since the air conditioning was broken. We moved in an effort not to roast the kids and us out of the hotel.

We set off to explore Berlin by foot the first day, walking around the city center to tour the Topography of Terror, the Brandenburg Gate, Holocaust Memorial, and Reichstag Building!

The second day we spent time at an outside market about green living before we made our way to the Science and Technology Museum: Deutsches Technikmuseum. This stop was awesome, full of activities and sites. We saw windmills, active blacksmith scalping an iron leaf for Drew, and so many trains! The trains were kid paradise.

Our last (warm) morning in Berlin we took the train East Side Gallery. It was so neat to see the famous strip of paintings on the wall. I still have a hard time believing the wall existed. The physical barrier is still so intense and evokes such strong emotions. It was blazing hot or I would have spent even more time at the wall. It was our last morning with Lovis and we scrambled back to the hotel to get her to the bus stop.

It was so hard to say goodbye after spending quality time together in Germany and at her home. I was so thrilled to be able to connect in her element. I was sure I was going to cry. However, we ended up being SOOO late getting to the train station that she had to bolt out of the car and run to the station. We barely got to hug! Just a swift wave farewell and some texting later that night to know she made it! Hah! What a classic culmination of our time together!

We made our way to visit friends that we met through my research in Pittsburgh. We worked in neighboring labs and I warned them that I would be visiting them overseas in the future! Our kids are staggered and we've shared baby items in Pittsburgh during their visits. I couldn't believe it was actually going to happen that our kids could play together in the country side. We settled in and went to a local beer garden and playground. The kids had a blast! The next morning we ran around in the playground nearby which was fun, until Paul stepped in dog poop while barefoot - hahaha! Better him that the toddler!