Happy Father's Day!

I have a wonderful husband who happens to be an awesome Dad! The kids really look up to him and he is a great role model to say the least. He has patience, is fair, has a real knack for explaining things, loves to spend time with them, and gets really silly with them!!

This year we surprised our favorite Dad with a Rhein River Father's Day tour. The trip began at the 11th century Burg Reichenstein which is one of the oldest castles on the Rhein.

The castle is not normally open on Sundays, but it was for us today! Our tour group had the entire castle to ourselves which was really nice. Our guide was full of information and had a great sense of humor.

There were 70 castles or fortresses on this section of the Rhein River (one every mile). They controlled the passage of boats along the river by charging a fee to pass the waters in their area....so one boat could potentially pay up to 70 times!! They ships would lose 1/3 of their cargo due to the tolls they were charged.

Traditional German breakfast in the courtyard of the castle.

There were over 1,000 antlers on display in the castle. The collection was the unusual shaped ones because they were more interesting. Have you ever seen antlers like this?

This happens when there is no testosterone in a male which drives the growth of the antlers.
Instead of growing properly they twist upon themselves eventually covering the eyes!

After the castle tour, we visited a wine and Christmas store that was near the dock for our boat. This area has MANY vineyards and is a leading producer in German wine. They gave out samples of Eiswein which is wine produced from grapes that are frozen and shriveled up at the end of the season. These grapes make the best wine...so we were told. I must say that we don't drink so this wasn't too exciting for us, but we did try a sample. It was very good....we were both surprised!

We boarded a ship and enjoyed a 2 hour cruise through the most scenic part of the Rhein valley.

The views were beautiful!! There are so many castles in this area and we had the best view from the river without a doubt. There are some that we're planning to go back and tour.

Here is a sampling of some of the castles we saw today:

Check out this one!


Do you see something dangling??

Not a place I'd like to be "hung out" in!

Once ashore, we took a bus drive along the beautiful shore to our restaurant.

We enjoyed a special Fathers Day feast. We had broccoli and cheese soup, salad, pork steak with a pepper gravy, rice, and dessert which included a scoop of rasberry eis, whip cream, and fresh fruit. The kids ate schnitzel, french fries, and the same dessert. It was very good and we were VERY hungry!

After lunch, we visited Rudesheim. This little town in full of awesome restaurants!

Our tour included tickets to ride the cable car up to the top of the mountain to enjoy more awesome views. This was a nice surprise because I didn't realize these were included! The ride took us over more vineyards up to the top. We were not disappointed!

We had a wonderful time as a family. My husband loves going to new places and was very excited about the entire trip. The kids had a good time keeping today a secret.....although I wasn't sure it was actually going to remain a secret at times. This was the first year we have done something like this on Father's Day. My husband said it would be fun to start a tradition of taking a trip on Father/Mother's Day so we may have started a new tradition for our family today!

My husband took a picture of this flower today. I had to share it because I thought it turned out so pretty.

We love you very much and are so proud that you are our Dad!!