Week 86: It’s 2023!

We are back in Germany and its been one of our most boring weeks to date. We arrived back in Germany on Monday morning and as usual, our luggage did not arrive with us. We had checked four bags, full of Christmas presents received and all the Wal-Mart shopping we had done. When we arrived at Stuttgart airport, we waited, and waited, and waited for the luggage to arrive. Finally, an airport worker came in and said “Sorry, the plane was empty. They forgot to load this flight’s baggage on the plane from Munich.”How does that even happen; I don’t know. But we headed home to wait to hear more. Finally, our bags arrived around 10pm on another flight from Munich and were delivered to us.

Matt and I were sick the rest of the week so we never left the house. Even though we had work and school to keep us busy, staying in the house created a bad case of cabin fever. We are so grateful for friends who kept us fully stocked on meds and food, since we had nothing in the house after being away for almost two weeks.

Since this week was so boring, I figured this would be a good opportunity to look back on 2022 and think about 2023. Here’s what our 2022 looked like:

What We Did in 2022
Where We Went:

22 Countries
38,000 miles flown
11,600 miles driven
2,500 miles by ship

Where We Slept:

Marriotts: 35 nights
Airbnb’s: 10 nights
Other Hotels: 19 nights
w/Family & Friends: 28 nights
on a Cruise: 7 nights
Overnight Flights: 4 nights

TOTAL: 103 nights

This stat was the craziest to me. I know that we spend a lot of time going places but to see we actually spent almost a third of the year away from our beds was pretty shocking. It is very fitting that our friend nicknamed our house, “The Layover Spot.” One of our New Years’ Resolutions is to be home more often and try and cross off more local things from our to-do lists.

Top 5 Trips of 2022

We had a big debate in the family about where our favorite places visited were this year. Just about everything we did got mentioned during the discussion but here is what we came up with as our “Top 5”

Italian Dolomites

Wow this trip was awesome, so much packed into four days. The hiking is great, the views are beautiful, the people are so nice, and the food is delicious. At only 4-5 hours from our house on a good day, we definitely plan to go back.

Berlin, Germany

To be honest, we were expecting Berlin to be pretty dry and boring. It does not get the attention that Paris and London does but it is definitely on par. Lots of things to do, clean, not too expensive, and the bike tour put it over the top for us.

Normandy, France

We loved seeing the D-Day sites and learning more about the war. The region itself though is so cute and the people are really nice, despite the stereotypes about French people. The food and cider we also so good. It’s ironic that we liked Normandy so much since the first half of our trip was spent in Belgium and that would probably be on our list of “least favorite places” if we made one.

Cruise to Greece

We promised the kids when we moved to Germany, that we would take them on a cruise, so this was us paying our dues. The ship ended up being almost half empty and made it feel like we were on a private sailing. It was a super relaxing week even though we made five stops on the route. No stress; all smiles.

Lisbon

Lisbon was great, but meeting up with our besties made this such a special trip. There is so much to do here that can keep you busy for a week.

Honorable Mentions

Places that were major contenders in our family for favorite destinations, there were just too many to choose from. All places we loved and are within driving distance from our house so plan to return to.

Berchtesgaden, Germany
Lake Halstatt, Austria
Alsace, France
Vienna, Austria
Innsbruck, Austria
Champagne, France

Plans for 2023

We have lots of stuff planned for the first half of 2023 and are still trying to come up with ideas for the second half. One thing that I am particularly looking forward to are the trips that the kids are planning for us. Since it is hard to keep their interest in traveling, we told the kids they could each pick the own destination and plan a trip for us. Ryan’s trip is planned and booked, we are going to the 24 Hours of Le Mans race in France. Brooklyn has selected an opera she wants to see, but destination is still TBD.

Some other fun stuff we have planned are Spain, Amsterdam, Turkey, and Croatia. We are also hoping to get to the US at least twice, with one extended stay. Next weekend we are heading to Trømso, Norway to hopefully see the Northern Lights!