Day 58 (August 5th): Freiberg, Triberg & Baden Baden

We woke up at 7:00 AM since we had some driving to do today. We showered, finished packing our bags and then loaded up the car. We stopped at the bakery down the street and Zach went crazy with the croissants. Besides the cherry danishes, we ended up buying eight croissants because Zach liked them so much. We then hit the road and drove 3.25 hours to Freiberg where our former Au Pair, Sarah (see picture on left) was going to school. It was a great driving day and the last section of the drive took us through the Black Forrest. We arrived at Sarah's dorm around 1:45 PM after driving 360 km. Sarah had a friend in town, Julia, who also was Au Pair in Atlanta during the time Sarah was there. It was a nice day out so we walked to the tram and took it down to the Alstadt which was about a 15 minute ride. Throughout the Alstadt they have a 6 inch wide stream of water running through the city (see top picture). I believe it used to be a source of fresh water for the people living in the city. Since it was lunch time, we ate outside at a local Italian restaurant. I had a penne ariabiata, Al had a pizza with zucchini, Hannah had a salad and Zach had a pizza (that he liked). After lunch we got some ice cream and found a playground for the kids to play at since most of the stores were closed (it was Sunday). We then headed down to the river and found an outdoor bar with a seating area in the sand right next to the water. While I played with the kids in the sand, a random little girl decided to join us as the kids buried my feet. We then washed off in the cold river water before heading back to the tram and back to Sarah's dorm room. Note: Since the drinking age is 16 in Germany they have vending machines in the dorm that sell both soda and beer. A bottle of beer was one euro. Imagine if they had those vending machines in the States? In Sarah's room, we used her Internet connection to research hotels in Baden Baden, where we were planning to stay tonight. Luckily one of the very nice hotels that Al wanted to stay at had a family suite available for two nights so we booked it. We left Sarah's dorm around 5:30 PM and everybody said their goodbyes. Instead of going directly to Baden Baden, we decided to make a pit stop and head over to Triberg that had the largest waterfall in Germany. It took about 45 minutes to drive through the Black Forrest and arrive at Triberg. We parked the car and went down the steep path that ran parallel to the waterfall. It was a beautiful setting with the water rushing down the mountain through the rocks. We took a bunch of pictures (see picture on right) and made it to the bottom where there was a playground for the kids to play in. The center of town (Triberg) was also at the base of the waterfalls and we decided to eat dinner there before heading on to Baden Baden. Instead of all of us marching back up the mountain, Al volunteered to go get the car while I watched the kids. Al embarked on her journey and close to an hour later she arrived at the playground. When I met her at the car, she went on to describe the ordeal she went through hiking up the steep mountain and how her legs almost gave out. There weren't many restaurants to chose from and after reviewing the menus, we chose the most "Zach appropriate" restaurant for him to dine at. Zach ordered a hot salami and cheese sandwich on baguette and didn't like it. Luckily it had onions on it so we asked them to take it back and we ordered a pizza for Zach instead (that he liked). Hannah had a potato soup, I had a trout strudel with a salad that was very good and Al had a vegetable strudel with a salad that she liked also. Since we were in the Black Forrest we had to order Black Forrest cake. The cake comes with two options, either with or without Kirsch Wasser (Cherry Schnapps). We obviously picked the traditional option with the Schnapps. When we ate the cake certain sections of it were so strong with alcohol that it was difficult to eat. All in all it was still tasty. We finished dinner and got back into the car around 10:30 PM and had an hour drive to Baden Baden. It was a tough drive through the Black Forrest at night with no lights and very windy roads. We finally made it to our hotel called Der Kleine Prinz where we were pleasantly surprised to be upgraded to a suite. We had our bags brought up to the room and the kids each had their own bed while Al and I had a king bed. Lights out at 12:30 AM after another long, fun day.