Germany with Lydia Dec 2022

One of my 'baby' brothers joined the military last year, and his first assignment is to Germany so you know that the second I found out I started trying to figure out how to go visit him and my sister-in-law Maddy! Thankfully Dillon is supportive and so plans eventually evolved for me to take Lydia in December for the Christmas markets. 

We got tickets for the 13th through the 22nd, so that we could be there close to the holiday, and thankfully we missed all of the flight cancelations on our way back. All four of our flights (there and back) were delayed by a couple hours, but nothing too bad thankfully compared to so many others the day after we got back who were stranded for days due to the blizzard. 

I'm sure you're wondering how Lydia did, and let me tell you--she did amazing! I was worried because our kids are wild cards--we never know how they'll handle things so I prepared for the worst. Our first flight (to our layover in London) was at 9pm but got delayed over an hour so I was nervous because I had hoped she would be asleep by then. And the thing is, when Dillon and I would travel before kids we would always find the cheap deals, meaning we had the bare minimum of service, so I didn't realize that we would be getting dinner right after take off since we were flying British Airways. They have a policy to feed kids first so they brought Lydia's meal immediately, but she wasn't hungry because I had already fed her dinner at a normal dinner hour ha. She was asleep by the time I got my meal 30 minutes later! And she slept 7 hours straight and only woke up because they started breakfast service! Then she watched tv for a little until we landed 1.5 hours later. She was such an easy going traveler!

Even though we took off at night, we got into London just as the sun was setting the next day. Changing time zones is weird and Lydia was a little confused, but I just followed her lead and let her tell me when she was hungry or tired and then fed her or let her sleep, and it worked great. We had a 4 hour layover, which turned into a 6 hour layover (both there and back), but we needed the time to go through security again, then we found food and a "soft play" area so the time actually went by quickly. Then on to Stuttgart (getting in at midnight), even though we were actually supposed to fly into Munich but there was snow all over Europe that caused a lot of problems. We were the lucky ones who didn't get stranded but it also meant that my brother had to pick us up 3 hours away instead. Lydia fell asleep on the plane but was awake for the 3 hour ride to Patrick and Maddy's house. All of us girls could try to rest once we finally got in at 6 am, but my poor brother had to go to work immediately! 

We had made plans to go to Salzburg right away that afternoon and stay the night but after getting a late start heading there, the weather was too bad and it would have taken too long and we would have missed what we were going for anyway that we headed back to be safe. That was a good choice! A few other times things didn't go according to plan, but such is life and we still had a great trip! 

And now it's time for a huge photo dump of what we did! Next is a bunch of photos from the Christmas Markets. Though we didn't get to two on our list, we made it to Regensburg, Munich, Rothenburg ob der Tauber, and Nuremburg!

I definitely bought three of these cute snowman mugs and brought them back for the kids!

We did and saw much more than these pictures show, but you get the gist. Lydia was a lucky girl having someone (Patrick) carry her most of the time! She was nice and warm in her snowsuit and only complained a couple times, much better than I expected! But I suppose one on one time for a week without your brothers might make someone less irritable ha. 

One of the highlights of the trip was getting to see my Ukrainian "daughter" from my mission! Fourteen years ago we served together (she started with me "training" her--she came well prepared and didn't really need training--and then after being with other companions for several months I ended my mission with her!) and now she and her family have been living in Germany since the war broke out. It was so wonderful to see her and her family and it won't be the last time! You really can't find better people than Ira and her husband Sasha! Such faithful, kind, wonderful people! 

There was so much snow while we were there and it was so cold right up until the day we left so Lydia wrote out a list of snow activities she wanted to accomplish and then enjoyed doing them all by herself while we watched from the warmth of inside the house! 

Jet lag is weird on a 4 year old so one morning I woke up to see all the things Lydia quietly did in the middle of the night while I slept and thought she was sleeping too! 

She really was so great with all the traveling we did! On one night we were close to getting back to Patrick and Maddy's so I didn't want her to fall asleep, but she was getting tired so I gave her my phone to take pictures with--I've got about 10 of these close ups of her face and then about 50 of darkness or partial pictures of nothing ha. 

And then so quickly our trip came to an end! Lydia did great on the way back as well. She drew on the first flight, played in the soft play for a couple hours again during our layover, walked and walked and walked through the huge airport, then on our flight she watched tv for a couple hours until she was tired, then slept the rest of the 10 hour flight and then somehow she slept the rest of the way home (getting in a midnight), and then up until 6 am! I would travel again with her any day! I have joked that traveling internationally with one four year old is much easier than regular life with three four year olds ha, but it's not actually a joke because it really was easier to take care of only one four year old instead of three!

Lydia had picked out these snowman treats for the boys. Also, I had purchased and wrapped all but one present before we left because I would only have one day to do anything when we got back and then it would be Christmas Eve, and I wanted to be able to recover for a second! I'm so glad "early December Danielle" was on top of things--that made it so much better to come back and just enjoy things! Lydia and I both ended up getting sick, but we still had a good Christmas.