THE JOURNEY AHEAD.....: So many FIRSTS.....

There are so many firsts for Zechariah and for John and I these past three weeks that I must enter them in our blog. We have been in Europe for just about three weeks now (we head home in two more days). It has been an amazing trip!! We are truly blessed to have such an amazing little boy who travels well and really adapts to any new situation that he has been forced to deal with. Planes, trains and automobiles, by now I am sure that he is sick of them, but he has done so well this entire time. We are so blessed that our little boy loves to travel as much as we do!

We arrived in the Haag on Thursday, August 9th. The plane ride over was definitely an experience and thank goodness this is kind of a trial run for Australia because now we know what things we would change to make it a better expereince. The ride home will be better though as we did reserve larger seats. Yes that was the biggest problem with the ride over, it was a small plane and we were so squished, especially with Zech on our laps. We had to change planes in London at the Gatwick airport. What a disaster! We were changing airline companies completely so we had to get our luggage in Gatwick and then find our new gate and go through security all over again. We get off the plane thinking our stroller would be there, but no, so off we went with Zech in our arms and all of our luggage (there is no travelling lite with an infant--believe me!). After walking for miles (literally), we get to an extremely large, long line up. We have to go through customs. So we make our way down the ramp slowly into the maze of an "organized" line up system. By this time I am dying.....no air conditioning in this part for some strange reason and Zech is in my arms and I feel like I am going to faint. We were rescued though by some nice security guard who finally saw that I was carrying a 24 lb. child and let us through ahead of half the crowd. Thank the Lord for him.

Now I forgot to mention that when we got off the plane, (before we walked for miles and stood in line for ages) I was doing an inventory count of all our luggage and realized that I forgot my brand new camera on the plane. John went sprinting back down to retrieve the camera, thank goodness I remebered when I did.

So now we found all of our luggage and headed back down to check in and go through security. We arrive at security and get everything set up. We had brought a cooler full of goat milk with us and due to the restrictions of liquids we were a little worried, but had called ahead and were assured that baby milk and food would be acceptable. Well it was acceptable, but they did request that John take a swig of goat milk in front of them to ensure that it was not poisoned or anything. That was John's first taste of goat milk and he even offered the Security Guard some too! It did lighten the mood a little!

We collect all of our stuff and they do not issue your gate number to you. You actually have to stand (or sit) around this large screen and wait for it to pop up and from the time that it pops up you have 45 min. to get on the plane. So we were sitting and waiting and I felt that it was time to change Zech's diaper, but couldn't find our knapsack that now became the diaper bag. I had left the 'diaper bag' at security. So off John sprints again, back through security. Now normally this wouldn't be such a big deal but in Gatwick you go through two types of security. First you put your bags through the x-ray and you walk through the metal detector, then you collect your stuff and pass to the next secured area where you take off your shoes and pass them through an x-ray machine. So poor John sprinted back through to retrieve the forgotten diaper bag and then had to go through the 'shoe' security again. I was not John's favourite person by this time.

Finally, the screen came up and we were off to our gate. Thank goodness they had a shuttle this time to take us to our gate. The flight from London to Amsterdam was only an hour but we all crashed and slept straight through. When we got off, we ensured that there was nothing left behind and headed to the trains. We had to take a train to the Haag where Tony and Mari were waiting for us. It was a task with all of our stuff but we made it and it was so great to see Tony and Mari waiting for us.

We spent Friday wondering around Tony and Mari's place. They only live two blocks from the beach, so we wondered up and down the beach. On Saturday we left for the next part of the journey---the train to Germany. It was a long day of travelling by train as we had to switch trains 4 times and did not arrive until 9:30 pm. It was nice to see all the country side, but it really was a long tiring day.

We arrived in Oberstaufen Saturday evening and had a week to spend there. The timeshare was beautiful. We were down in Bavaria which is the Southern part of Germany and it really was beautiful. Sunday and Monday we relaxed and wandered around the town where we were staying. We needed to give Zech some time to recover from the jet lag, train lag and the complete time change.

Here are a few pictures.....I will continue to post about the rest of our journey.

The place where we stayed....Mondi-Holiday Resort.....very beautiful!The Bavarian countryside.
Trying to get our little monkey back on schedule......doesn't he look happy!?