Day 38 (July 16th)

Woke up and went to our usual corner bakery for breakfast. The kids were still sleeping since we got home late the night before, so I brought them back their food. We played in the apartment in the morning and then met Al at her office for lunch. It was one of the hotter days in Dusseldorf in a long time so we looked for a restaurant with AC. We ended up going to the Maredo Mexican restaurant since it was the only one with AC that we could find in limited time. Al and I had the salad bar, Hannah had the chicken wings and Zach had the nachos. We then dropped Al off at work and the kids got ice cream. The kids wanted to go back to the Hofgarten, so we walked up there and found a cool playground. We weren’t there five minutes before Zach had to go to the bathroom. Luckily I found a drugstore across the street and they allowed the kids to use the restroom. We bought some water there and headed back to the playground. At the playground there was a fun rope spider that the kids could climb on. I set up different obstacle courses for them and they had races. There was also a sandbox area there where you can pump water and it flows through the drains into the sand. It was a nice warm day out and the kids had so much fun being outdoors. I finally was able to motivate them after hours of playing. We walked back to the apartment and waited for Al to come home. For dinner, YH wanted authenticate German food so we ate at Zum Shiffel. He had the big pork knuckle, Al had the sauerbraten, Hannah had tomato soup, Zach had grilled chicken and I had a shrimp dish. Al enjoyed it but the rest of us weren’t totally thrilled with German food. We walked over to our crepe place around the corner and had dessert. It was a nice night out so we continued to walk around the Alstadt and then headed home. We watched some Gilmore Girls and then hit the sack after 12:00 AM.