The Valley of Seven Chateaus

We had spend almost all day on Saturday driving through the beautiful valleys and visited the chateaus that this region has offer.  Not all of them are open to the public, but the views outside are still very impressive.  The drive was very picturesque.  Ian is into counting things, so he and Carolyn kept counting baby sheep, or calves, or stairs ;)))

First were saw the ruins in the old town of Koerich.

Ansembourg Castle was very impressive, especially the immaculate gardens that surrounded the castle.

As we kept driving we discovered more castles, which is not hard to do since there are about 150 castles in Luxembourg.

Castle in Larochette was next on our way. 

This is old toilet.  It seem like it did not change much ;))

Beauford Castle.... Kids were still "into discovering", so we kept exploring.





 torture chamber

Our kids kept saying they need to "look out of the window"

It was very overwhelming to see the beautiful architecture of these chateaus.  Some of them are being restored, some are still places of residence, and some are ruins.  Our last castle, in Vianden, is going to be featured in the next blog.  My camera ran out of juice, so I had to improvise and I took pictures with my IPad.  Now I can't manage to e-mail those.  I will keep trying.



Mother's Day Weekend

First of all, here in Luxembourg, they don't celebrate the Mother's Day on the second Sunday in May.  However in Germany, just 30 away, they do.  Needless to say I am not much on gifts, I just wanted some great weather and I GOT it.  It was a little breezy, but very sunny.   Beautiful weather for walking, playing outside, or just laying in the grass.

We found another ALDI shopping center that we like much better than the one in Konz.  In addition the ride is much more picturesque.  Here are some views that we enjoyed.  In that part of the country there are many vineyards.

After we treated ourselves to McDonald's, we saw this beauty.  No, the guy did not want to help us transport our groceries ;)))



On Sunday, since there is no shopping available, we went on to discover another park.  This community located not far from the city of Luxembourg.  Actually, there are two parks here, and we enjoyed playing in both.



We have learned about a new game, Petanque, while we were in the park.  The park in Esch was crowded, in an organized way though.  Not sure if that is a normal crowd or if there was a tournament going on, but it steel balls flying around sure did catch our attention.

So the object of the game is to through the steel ball as close as possible to jack, which is for that team a much smaller ball in fluorescent green color.  It is hard to see on the picture but those guys are playing on the gravel (less rolling). 

And then we just soaked up the sun (wearing our sweaters ;0)



This concludes the Mother's Day edition of the blog.  By the way  Mother's Day in Luxembourg is celebrated on second Sunday in June.  I will be taking advantage of that ;)))))

Eventful week

The past week has flown by.  May 1st was the European Labor day.  The weather was the best.  We went to the downtown to attend a local market and just walk the streets.

On Saturday was our 13th wedding anniversary.  We did not do anything special.  Our trip to Paris is our gift to ourselves.  Then on Sunday Ashley celebrated his 35th birthday.  The following are the pics.



 The cross and a cat that Ashley is holding those are things that Carolyn made in school.  She was thrilled that they were done in time to gift those to dad.

 I just had to get a mug for Ashley with couple of his buddies from our neighborhood.

"First Grill"

The only thing we had to do inside this weekend is to go to Carolyn's Gymnastics Competition.  Her club won first place in the region in their age group and caliber.  This was the second competition Carolyn participated in this year.  She is really loves it. Following is the picture of Carolyn and her trainer before Carolyn did her routine.

Then later we celebrated :)))))

Ashley and I are truly missing our backyard, grilling and having the friends over.  So we decided to get a grill for our yard here, in Luxembourg.  When you talk to the locals here they will admit that they love to do some barbecuing.  No, they don't eat the BBQ.  They simply call the grilling by the different name.

Duck Race 2012

Last weekend we were blessed with wonderful weather.  I think the temperature reached 76 degrees.  I have not seen that number in almost 7 months.  We spend the whole weekend outside.  On Saturday, Luxembourg city has organized a Duck Race.  You know when I first heard of it I was imagining the duck hunt.  But it was out of the question.  No one will be hunting ducks in the city!!!!  So we came to find out that it was duck race. Rubber Duck Race 2012!!!!

It was a cancer research fund raiser.  People would buy a rubber ducky as a part of sponsoring the event.  After 8, 000 ducks were sponsored, they were released down the creek. 

It was fun watching those ducks swim by.  The race was divided into three heats.  There were many prises.  The first prise was the car.  We did not wait to see who was the lucky winner.  We has a lot of fun though.