While our niece, Amelia has been staying with us, she has been communicating with her family back in the US primarily through Skype. This is very nice and she really looks forward to their chats, but it isn't the same as actually being with your family. And she is, after all, only 10 years old. So she was very excited to find out that her mother and brother were coming out for a visit in the beginning of October school vacation. The first day here, we took them to the nearby animal park where you can see many different kinds of native Swiss animals in their natural habitats. We figured it would be a good way to help them stay awake and get over the jet lag faster, especially since they were only here for a total of 6 days.
We like this park because of the fun playgrounds, and the walk through the forest is very relaxing. Of course, then we tried to take a short cut and ended up taking a really long cut, making the walk more torture than fun for the kids towards the end. Unfortunately, my camera was MIA so I have no photos of the event. 🙁 The highlight was seeing the bear take a swim in his little lake. We decided that teddy bears really do look just like the real thing, just smaller. :)
Another day we went to Appenzell together and visited the cheese factory there. We also had delicious Appenzeller cheese fondue in the restaurant attached to the factory. Soooo good! The kids want me to try and make it that way at home, it was so yummy. There was also a recipe on the napkin ring for quiche using Appenzeller cheese. I haven't tried it yet, but I am sure it will be delicious. Anything made with cheese that good has to be tasty.
We headed over to the little town afterwards, planning on doing a bit of sightseeing and some shopping. There were a lot of cars there, even though it was in the middle of the week. I suppose because of it being the school holidays. At any rate, we were having trouble finding a parking spot. I found one that was kind of small, and signaled for Liz to park there while I drove around the corner to a bigger parking lot, hoping to find a spot there. It was raining, making it a big hard to see, so I had Sophie and Sarah keep a look out and tell me if Liz had taken the spot. They said no, so we continued driving over to the other parking lot. Just as I was about to cross the street, Sophie called out that rather than following us and going straight, Aunt Liz had turned right. They were very upset and worried about poor Aunt Liz getting lost, as was I. She had no cell phone, didn't speak German, and had never been to the town before, ( I don't think.)
Instead of parking, I pulled around and retraced our route, this time also turning where Sophie had seen her leave us. We did see a large parking lot over there, but no sign of her or their car. We drove back, parked, got out and walked back that direction, hoping to run in to them trying to find us. No such luck. We kind of pulled off to the side and said a little prayer. We didn't have any new ideas of where to look for them, but did feel very peaceful that it was all right and they were okay.
We decided to go ahead and walk through town a bit, looking for them along the way. After going down the main street, playing in the bubbles at the toy store, and walking back to the parking lot, we had a breakthrough. Sophie and Sarah started screeching that there was Aunt Liz's car very close to ours! We ran over and looked inside to be sure. Yep, there was Amelia's sweater on the seat! Hurray! We found them at last! We stayed by their car and in a little while they came walking over to us. So glad they weren't completely lost or stranded somewhere. Turns out, Liz did take that original parking spot I pointed out to her, the girls were just watching a second car that looked a lot like hers a big farther back. That is the car that turned the wrong direction, not Liz.
We decided to explore the town again, only this time together. We also stopped at the bakery and got some dessert. The girls each picked out an Edelweiss necklace to wear with their Austrian Dirndls and naturally, everyone chose a postcard or two. It started to rain again, but it wasn't too bad, more like a heavy mist. The ride home did take a bit longer, as there was quite a bit of traffic and the rain slowed things down as well. The kids were really sick of being in the car after that and completely rebelled the next day about going anywhere.
Liz, Simon and Amelia did some sightseeing on their own, which was nice, since my kids were being such party poopers. Plus it gave Amelia a chance to just be with her family, which I am sure she enjoyed.