We arrived at the Amsterdam Central Station with plenty of time to spare since we didn't want to repeat our close call getting on the train to get to Amsterdam and headed east to Hamburg, Germany. The girls were really excited for this next leg of our journey because they knew Legoland was our next main attraction.
We stayed with Adam's dad's cousins in Klein Nordende, a small town just north of Hamburg. Arno and Rita welcomed us with open arms and their son, Mattias, his wife Tina and their children Michael and Line joined us for dinner on our first night. The next morning we rose bright and early to head almost four hours north into Denmark to go to LegoLand in Billund.
What a fun day we had at the park! We started by walking around MiniLand and checking out the many models of other cities built entirely out of Legos. It was cool to see Amsterdam since we had just been there and could recognize that city. There was also a huge Lego Friends display and the girls loved looking at that since they have a lot of Lego Friends sets themselves.
We spent the rest of the day going on different rides. Some rides had a long wait (up to 30 minutes) but we enjoyed all of them. We all really liked going on the boat ride that cruised past several famous monuments like the Statue of Liberty, the Sphinx and the Acropolis. Talia drove the boat with Adam and that proved to be a little difficult but Tea had no problem steering us safely along the river. The girls also got to go on a Lego safari and found all sorts of animals made from Lego. We watched a hilarious show about two princes fighting for a princess' love at a castle surrounded by a moat. Part of the show's hilarity was that the performers kept being pushed into the water and they were all excellent divers so it was cool to see their flips and turns as they fell in. We liked the show so much the first time that we came back a few hours later to see it again! We went on a small rollercoaster together as a family and Tea, my thrill seeker, hunted down another larger coaster she could go on with Adam. Talia and I sat that one out (but only because Talia was too short to ride). I'm not sure what I'm going to do once I don't have Talia's height as an excuse not to get on the rollercoasters! The day was a great success and was a nice break from museums, churches and history lessons! We got home very late and the girls were exhausted, but luckily we had a few days to recover while staying with Adam's family.
The next three days were spent in Klein Nordende just enjoy getting to know Adam's cousins and their children better and watching the kids have fun. On Friday, Mattias' brother, Benjamin, and his two daughters, Marlene and Charlotte, arrived in Klein Nordende to celebrate Mattias' 40th birthday. For the rest of the weekend the kids played at the park and at Mattias' house. They loved the zip line at the park and the trampoline in the backyard. Each evening we went back to Arno and Rita's and enjoyed hearing more about Adam's family history and shared updates about the American Raddays.
One of the most fun things the girls did was check out Rita's garden with her. She showed them how to find potatoes in the ground so they dug up a whole bunch to eat for dinner. They went inside and scraped the potatoes (you don't actually have to peel potatoes that are right out of the ground; the skin comes right off) and then Rita boiled them. They were delicious; I've never eaten potatoes so fresh! They also picked currants from the bushes and enjoyed eating them right out in the garden.
Adam had a great time hanging out with Benny and Mattias and they watched some EuroCup Games back at Mattias' house. It was disappointing to see Germany lose to France but it was still fun to be in Germany while the game was going on. The girls got along very well with their cousins (well, third cousins to be exact) and it was cool to watch them play and figure out how to do things together without a common language. The girls started picking up some German phrases in their few days in Klein Nordende and were comfortable saying "danke" instead of thank you and said "gute nacht" to Arno and Rita each night. We will be in Germany for about 3 more weeks so maybe they will have even more phrases by the time we leave! We will stay with Mattias and his family for a week at the end of July and the girls are really looking forward to getting back to Klein Nordende.
Next stop, Berlin!