Knorr Family Adventures

I think we have finally figured out our school situation for next year.  It still has some kinks but the overall plan is in motion.  All 3 boys are finishing the school year in their current school since it's the easiest and they are used to it by now.  (School year ends on July 24, by the way, with first day of school on September 7.)  However, all will go to different places next year.  Our current school was a good transition school - we didn't know where we were going to live, we don't speak any German and the administrations here does, and finally it was a bit of an easier transition for the boys to still have English in their lives, and not just drop them into an all German school.  Also, Ilya was a bit too young to attend regular school so it was a good compromise.  The negatives, however, outweigh the positives.  The boys haven't learned much German, having them in the same class hasn't been ideal and the school is Montessori-type school w...

We didn't really have a good plan as to how we want to spend the day after we left our first lodgings and before we reached the second one so we started to drive in the direction of Switzerland which was one of the ways to get to Neuchwenstein Castle.  Then we realized how close we were to Zurich, it seemed like a great place to stop.  We had no idea what to do there or where to go but, nonetheless, it seemed like a good stopping place.  We headed to the city center according to our GPS and just walked around for a bit before we decided that the central train station would be an interesting spot for the boys and that they would have a lot of quick food options.  Both were correct.  Trains pulling in and out all the time was something that the boys enjoyed watching, even though Ilya wasn't sure why we weren't getting on a train :)  After lunch we started heading back to our car but got EXTREMELY lost.  I have to say that from all the boys Ilya is the on...

On day 2 of our trip we planned on going to see Konstanz which is a city located on Bodensee lake.  It has an interesting history in the fact that it held Council of Constance from 1414 to 1418 where 3 Popes abdicated and a new pope was elected after nearly  30 years of confusion and turmoil.  The statue in the middle of the lake represents Imperia,  one of the characters  from Balzac's  story, holding an emperor in one hand and the pope in the other and both are naked except for crown and papal tiara. It was incredibly cold that day so instead of heading out to Mainau (an island that we assumed would be cold and windy),we headed out to check Salem Palace.  It was only about 15 minutes away from the house we were staying in which was an added bonus but even without the bonus, the Palace was a lot of fun.  Again, we opted not to take 3 exhausted boys for an inside guided tour (we've been walking around for around 3 hours by then and see above - r...

We planned to see a lot of smaller towns plus Munich on this trip and our first stop was Ludwigsburg.  It's one of those little German towns that has a market square and a palace with a garden so we figured it was a perfect stop to walk around and let the boys run.  Unfortunately, it rained all day yesterday. Fortunately, we didn't really care and just did our thing.  Ludwigsburg is less than 2 hours away from our house but feels completely different.  We decided to check out Residenzschloss which is supposed to be the Europe's largest palace to survive in its original condition.  When we went up to get our tickets we were informed that the only way to get into the palace was to do a 90 minute guided tour - not happening with our little crew but they did have Lego exhibition so we opted for that and the boys (including the big boy Chris) couldn't be happier.  The play room was in the very last room so until we got there it was a little hard to explain to An...