Big Boys Camp: Germany: Day 6

Playmobil...one of our
favourite toys

Wittenburg to Kröpelin

You may think that in Germany you can't watch Australian tv shows but this morning and last night I got to watch: Dragons, Badou, and Octonauts! (In German of course) We called mummy on the iPad and talked to her for a bit.

We visited the Lutherhaus in the morning and it was awsome! We also went to the Phillip Melanchthonhaus museum which was a hands on museum with a key that unlocked cupboards and chests that had facts about the family and at the end you got to do a quiz. We saw the Luther Oak and then we started driving to Köpelin.

Big Boys Camp: Germany: Day 5

Eisenach to Wittenburg

Today we had breakfast at the hotel bar and then visited the Wartburg, founded by Ludwig the Leaper in the early 1100s.  At the Wartburg we took a tour of the inside of the palace, which was amazing! One of the rooms was totally covered with mosaics! We also got to see Luther's room "Luther stube".  

The Wartburg is famous for more reasons than just Luther and his stay there for 10 months in 1521.  It was the home for St Elisabeth whose husband died on the way to the crusades, and was known for her acts of mercy and service to the sick and the poor.  She established a few hospitals.  She was declared a saint by the church only a few years after her death.  

We then started driving to Wittenburg. We took the scenic route and finally found the Highway. 

Our new car is amazing! It is a BMW, and it has a button to turn on the engine! On German roads you can go as fast as you want unless there are signs saying otherwise.  We arrived safely in Wittenburg and had a look at the church where Luther preached at when he was in Wittenburg. Then we went to our hotel (the Luther hotel) had dinner (bread and slices of meat from lunch) and went for a walk through the town centre.

Big Boys Camp: Germany: Day 4

Aglasterhausen to Eisenach

Today we got up and called Mummy on the iPad, then we got on the train to go to Frankfurt for church and then on to Eisenach. Uncle Rolf stayed behind to look after Oma. 

At the church (Three Kings Church) there was a baptism, and so the pastor preached two sermons!  When we had communion we all gathered around the altar and had communion.  Then we held hands for the dismissal. 

Then we picked up the car at the airport. We made it to Eisenach and went to the toilet at a petrol station. Why are we mentioning the toilets? Because when I (Tiger) went into the toilets (after paying) I saw that the toilets had touch sensor flushers and after you flushed the toilet a machine came out of the wall and cleaned the toilet bowl. 

We went to the Bachhaus Museum and saw many amazing things and they had bowl chairs hanging from the roof that had headphones to listen to Bach's music.  While we were there the guides on our tour played musical instruments that Bach would have played. One of the instruments that they had there was really quiet and could be played at night without waking the family. 

We took the scenic route to the hotel and when we got there we discovered that we had somehow picked the wrong dates for the hotel, if we had followed the dates that we had accidentally chosen we would have been in Germany after Skipper's first birthday! We fixed up the dates and had dinner in Eisenach.

Big Boys Camp: Germany: Day 3

Today we visited Oma and managed to get her out into a wheelchair.

Then went to the Sinsheim pool, which had a "round and round" pool, and a salt pool. All of the pools except the salt pool were heated to about 30 degrees!

Then we visited an old castle with a tower just outside of Sinsheim and had afternoon tea in the castle.

We visited Oma again in the afternoon and then went home.

Big Boys Camp: Germany: Day 2

The Big Barrel

The inner court of Heidleberg Castle.

Today we got up and visited Oma and then went to visit the Heidelberg Castle. We also went to Heidelburg Holy Spirit Church and climbed the tower there.

The castle was amazing and it was Gigantic. We saw the biggest ever filled wine barrel in the world! It held 227,000 litres of wine. It was created by Prince Elector Karl Theadore.

At the of Heidelburg Kirche Turm (Church tower)

The guard of the monstrosity of a barrel drank so much wine that when someone gave him a glass of water he dropped dead! Why? I hear you ask? Because he had never had water in his entire life and in those days the water was polluted with chemicals.

We visited Oma again, did some shopping and went back to Aglasterhausen.

Written by Tiger and Daddy Fandrich.

Big Boys Camp: Germany: Travel Day(s)

We (Daddy and Tiger) got on the train in Albury and went to Melbourne. We flew to Hong Kong and transferred to a plane that took us to Frankfurt. We flew over China and Russia and directly over Moscow!  The airport in Frankfurt was huge, it had over 500 gates!

We took the train to Mannheim, and guess what?  Our first train was 25 minutes late.  So much for German punctuality.













Then Heidelberg and lastly Aglasterhausen were Uncle Rolf picked us up. We visited Oma later in the afternoon.

It has been an amazing experience so far here in Germany.

By Tiger and Daddy

Renovations Part 4: Landscaping

Work begins...better than TV!

At the back of our house there is a lovely covered area...it would be a deck if there was a wood floor. It could be a patio. We call it "The Green Room" because it is covered in green corrugated fibre glass and green shade cloth and as such it has a rather green glow about it.

But our green room had a decidedly brown floor. No grass was growing there, and it appeared that grass would struggle to grow. When it was dry...it was dusty. And when it was wet...it was muddy. And dear little Skipper just loved to go outside and play in the dirt and if ever the door opened was outside in a flash and off to eat as much of it as he could manage before he was caught.

After much debate, and talking to three different landscapers...we decided to pave. We also decided to have the retaining wall redone at the same time since it was looking shabby and made of wood (and we clearly don't want to attract termites any more than necessary).

So our green room is now paved in red pavers the colour of the old red bricks that were used to do that latest addition to the 130 year old house. We have grassed the areas around that. We pulled back a lot of dirt from in front of the retaining wall to make our slope a little more gentle and used the dirt to help create a contour bank to redirect water that we found coming off the paddocks in huge downpours. We also added two drains to our paved area to help with getting rid of water in those big downpours.

My dirty, hard workers!

Simple is good! I love the space we have created with all that green grass (it will be all grass once we have finished with it!).










It's been a very dusty four weeks. This morning the grass arrived...and our little workers laid 100m2 of grass. It looks fantastic. We are so glad this is now done.

Busy Takes On New Meaning

Electrician, landscaper, and builder...on the day the Boarder
Mail arrived to take photos

Lent...the 40 days before Easter (not including Sundays) where as Christians we focus our thinking on repentance. For a pastor's family, Lent rivals Advent (the 4 Sundays before Christmas Day) for the busiest time of the year.

This is normal for us. So generally during Lent (and Advent) I try to keep things as simple as possible in the home. We reduce our extracurricular activities to the absolute minimum so that we can allow for the extra events that happen in this time.

Somehow I forgot about all that this year. So how has Lent been busy for us? Let's see:

• I finalised our registration for homeschooling in NSW (currently considered the most difficult state in Australia to register...although I would dispute just how difficult it is)

• Our landscaping started at the beginning of Lent...and took all four weeks to finish. Dust...

• The builder came to fix the termite damage...MORE dust.

• On the day our landscaping and building began the kids and I took part in an interview for our local paper about homeschooling (flick through the photos, there's some great ones of the kids).

The Man enjoyed taking photos of the photographer who
came from the Boarder Mail.

• The electrician came to make safe and fix up some electrical issues in the house.

• My laundry was built  (I think this was my favourite thing!)

• We laid out 100m2 of turf.

• For three weeks our phone and internet weren't working. It's only just now back to normal. 

And at the beginning of Lent we discovered that Christian's mother is very unwell in Germany. So we have been praying and planning about his travelling to Germany to help assess her care. Tiger is going to accompany him, which is both exciting and nerve wracking. We look forward to reading Tiger's blog posts whilst he is away.

Renovations Part 3: Termite Damage

When we bought Stoneleigh we had the usual building and pest inspections. This turned out to be a great thing, because we discovered termite damage in the wall between the old part of the house and the latest addition to the house...which is a good thing because everyone needs a good reminding to have pest inspections on a yearly basis...and this was ours.

It took quite some time to get a reasonable quote to fix the damage, but we eventually found one. It took a week to fix. And since there was a lot of dust we decided that the kids could sleep on the verandah for that time. They LOVED it! It was loads of fun, the weather remained just right for this kind of activity and it really was like camping in your own bed. I have a funny feeling that this might become a bit of an annual event!




As you can see from the photos, some of the termite damage was quite severe. The top hardwood lintel that was above a window before renovations was completely eaten through. The builder could literally put his fingers through it. It was paper thin. Considering these were load bearing walls, it was a wonderful blessing that we didn't have any disaster on our hands.

Renovations: Part 2...The Laundry

When we arrived, the laundry renovations had been started by the previous owner, but there had been a dramatic halt in all renovations so it was unfinished. A bench lined one wall and under the window. and two Bunnings kit cupboards were up on another wall. The floors were just the concrete slab. Most notably, I had a sink in the corner of the laundry...with a bench in front of it so access was leaning over a bench to get to it. It was awkward.

At Christmas time I discovered what Bradley did for a living after he mentioned that he had spent the afternoon whipping up the manger scene for one of our major Christmas services. So we had him round for dinner and dreamed up a fantastic laundry. This new laundry has eight deep drawers so that each person has a drawer for their clean clothes as they are folded up. It has a bench down just one wall but cupboards are up to the ceiling, and covering three of the walls in the room. I don't think I could have added anything more into this room. 

Happy?? VERY! Bradley has worked so hard...best working tradie by far! And the happiest disposition!