Europe #1

So - it's about time for a new post, but I don't have any exciting 'day-to-day' stuff to report, so I thought I'd go reminiscing and tell you a bit about when we went to Europe last February. My brother Bret and his family (Wife-Laura and kids-Max & Maddie) were living in Metz, France while my brother finished graduate school. We saw it as the perfect opportunity to take advantage of having family there and go on the trip of a lifetime!! We were able to take enough time off work to spend almost a month there!

We flew into London and took the chunnel over to a city called Lille, FR where we picked up our rental car. We then made the 3 hour drive (after already being up for over 24 hrs) to Bret's appartment in Metz. It was a wonderful reunion, as we hadn't seen them in almost 7 months. (Which was a long time since we were used to seeing them at LEAST once a week - they were our best friends and we hung out a lot!)

The following day was Sunday (thank heaven!) so we were able to relax and try to get over the jet lag of being in an almost opposite time zone. The sister missionaries came for dinner that night, and Bret & Laura fed us their favorite Swiss meal called Raclette - which was quickly adopted into a favorite of Neil and I (so much so, that we brought an entire wheel - 13 lbs. - of it home the second go round. That was an interesting experience getting through security!). It's a type of cheese that you heat in little fry pans until it bubbles, and you eat it over salt potatoes. Mmmmm....sounds strange but it is SOOOO good!!

For our first day of sight-seeing, we went to the 'old city' in Luxembourg. It was beautiful! It was set in this little valley, and all along the top were new buildings, and it was very modern. Then down in the valley, was this old fortress, and this big rock wall that was a giant crypt. It was our first experience seeing structures that were that old! It was so beautiful - even for being in February.

Since this post is already so long, I'll break the trip up into sections so that I can post more pictures without having to make this the longest post of the century. So for now I shall say...

To be continued...