Let the Adventure begin!

So my family is visiting for Christmas, and they arrived today, with only minor delays and mishaps (they said it was a bit Amazing Race-ish trying to get a new flight to Frankfurt).

My dad and I went to the rental car counter to get the keys to a VW bus (a bit more modern looking than the Little Miss Sunshine one, but with two grandparents, two parents and three girls it might but just as much of an adventure!). The woman at the counter showed us a map of Europe, with the eastern countries shaded in, and made my dad sign a waiver that he wouldn't drive into the former eastern bloc countries. I guess if you rent a Mercedes, BMW or VW the parts are worth too much; they often get stolen off the vehicle in the east! So we'll stick to Germany...

We pulled out of the airport parking garage, and with the help of the GPS navigation system found our way down the Autobahn to Saarbrücken.

We checked into the hotel, walked into town and had dinner. We went to a restaurant called Stiefelbräu that brews its own beer and serves Saarländisch specialties. Mormor, Morfar and I had Alsatian Flammkuchen, Elisabeth and Anna had Lyoner Wurst mit Bratkartoffeln, mom had Klöse and my dad had Bierschwenker. yum. And the waitress didn't believe him at first that he really did want a whole liter of Beer. :)