The Four Day weekend - Part II Austrian Alps

We were so excited to see the mountains. It was crazy trying to hook up the carseats, which were very different, without English instructions. Once the carseats were in and our pension address typed into the GPS, we were on our way. Here is the photo from the car of our first views of the mountains.

We made a short trip for lunch and a walk through the town center tin Oberammergau.  I'm going to post on this quaint little German town and another one we visited our last night in the Alps.

The Austrian Alps!  Words, and these photos, can't describe the splendor of these mountains.  Bruce says they remind him of the Rockies, but since I've never seen the Rockies, I have nothing to compare.  Spectacular comes to mind.  Grand.  Bruce and I spent our first night here meditating on the beauty and mightiness of God and praising Him in His creation.

Scenes from the terrace at our pension.

I actually think one of the boys shot this next one from the terrace.

Once we unloaded and refreshed ourselves, we hiked down to a little lake right next to our pension.  The boys loved watching the ducks and observing nature.  Andrew found a whole school of fish.  They actually looked like trout.  He was upset we didn't bring their fishing poles.  Yea, I could see us travelling with fishing poles  They wanted so desperately to swim in the lake, but we didn't bring swimsuits.

That night we found a restaurant that had a playground including a trampoline.  We ate dinner on the terrace and while Bruce and I slowly enjoyed our meal and drinks, the boys played until almost 9:30, after which we went back to the hotel and they collapsed.  I know 9:30 sounds late, but have I mentioned before that it doesn't get dark here until 10:00 and we have had trouble getting the boys to bed before 9:30.  I hope their bed time adjust back when we get back to Texas.

After breakfast the next morning we attended mass in the ski town of Seefeld, which is a hikers haven during the summer. We attended a beautiful church in a lovely square, which Bruce must have loved (from a landscape architects perspective) because he took many photos.  To our surprise, the boys were fabulous in mass.  This was a huge blessing because if we are very distracted by them, we are there simply in body only because the mass is in German..  However, we were able to follow along pretty closely with our Magnificat.  The readings weren't same since Ascension Thursday is a holy day of obligation here, but we just read the Ascension Thursday readings from our Magnificat.

After mass, we headed to a place where we could take a train halfway up the mountain.  The views literally took your breath away.  It wasn't just the mountains, but the beautiful meadows with wild flowers of blue, purple, pink, yellow, and white.  God is so Good.   Poor little Markie had trouble walking on the mountain, gravity kept pulling him off balance.  I felt it a few times myself.  We had a lunch of soup, weiners, and pommes frittes (french fries) and hiked as far as we could up the mountain.

Andrew running down the mountain.  Yes, that is him, the little speck.

The kings of the mountain.

That was only the first half of a very long, but wonderful day.  After hiking up the mountain, we hiked down into a gorge.  The photos don't really convey the beauty and fear that we, I mean I, experienced walked on the metal bridge suspended 300 ft above a gorge with my children running carelessly back and forth.  At one point, I leaned over to Bruce and whispered in his ear, "I am freaking out, but don't want to scare the children".

Here I am blissfully unaware of the fear and anxiety that is awaiting me just a few yards down the road.

We ended the evening with dinner and a walk through Mittenwald.  More of that in a later post.