The Grandparents come for a visit

Back in early June, my parents came for a visit.  It was perfect timing because I was able to tell them in person that Noah and I are expecting.  At first I thought it might be too soon (I was only ~6 weeks and hadn’t seen a doctor yet), but as their arrival approached, I knew there was no way I could keep that kind of secret in. 

As the timing was in between Mother’s and Father’s day, I told them that I had gifts for them to celebrate.  In fact, I had Oma and Opa themed presents, and they were shocked and extremely excited to know they had 2 grandbabies on the way (as my brother’s wife was also expecting – but now baby Tegan is 6 weeks old!!). 

Mom figured it out before Dad

The next morning we loaded up the car and headed to Austria for a long weekend getaway.  Our main destination was the little tourist town of Hallstatt, but we found a cheap apartment hotel in the nearby town of Rußbach.  Rußbach was incredibly charming and cute – a typical small village nestled in the alpine valley.  We leashed up the dogs and went on a small walking tour. 

The next morning, we left the dogs at the apartment and drove past Hallstatt to the Dachstein mountains.  Here you find some amazing ice caves – though not without a nice little hike up from the gondola.  As it was so hot outside, it was a wonderful relief to enter the chilly caves (though not a dog-friendly place).

The only way through is via a guided tour, and it turned out we were the only English speaking family in the group of about 40.  The tour guide was very accommodating and told us to stay up front with her, and she would translate her German speech to English for us at each station.  The only issue – some people really wanted to be in the front and would cut us off, only for the tour guide to tell them they had to stay behind us as we needed English translations.  We would then hear ripples of people talking about the ‘Brits’ at the front. 

And of course being at the front had some advantages – I was able to get some nice photographs without anyone in them! 

After our tour and lunch at the nearby restaurant, we took the gondola back down and drove past Hallstatt again back to our patient pups at the apartment.  They were more than ready to hop in the car to join us when we finally made it to Hallstatt.  It really was as picture perfect as you see on the internet – though there were plenty of tourists (including us of course).  

We ate dinner at a cute restaurant on the water, and Noah spotted a swan being ‘chased’ by his larger, paddleboat version. 

My parents had really wanted to take a boat ride on the lake, but we had already missed all the trips for the day.  So the next morning after checking out, we went back to Hallstatt so they could catch the first boat of the day.  As I am not a huge fan of boats, and we had the dogs with us, we stayed on dry land and took some of the same pictures as the day before – but this time with sunlight! 

After meeting back at the dock (where the girls made quite a few friends while we waited), it was time to head back to Munich.  While Hallstatt was adorable and definitely worth a visit, it was the perfect size for a short weekend getaway.