Week 106: Memorial Day Weekend

Its been another busy week. Unfortunately, early on in the week, Brooklyn and I were both struck down by a stomach virus, but we were on the mend quickly. Since there is no more softball practice, we have had lots more time in the evenings for working on homework and catching up with each other.

Thursday night was Brooklyn’s softball banquet and she earned her varsity letter. We are so proud of her and all her teammates.

Friday, Brooklyn left for a Europe-wide Girl Scout camping trip in Northern Germany. Scouts from all over Europe gather yearly and do a bunch of intercultural activities and networking. This year, there were over 3000 scouts from 12 countries.

Since Brooklyn would be away, we planned a short road trip to Luxembourg and Belgium to cross off some things on Ryan’s Europe bucket list. On a previous trip, Ryan had asked us to return to Belgium and Luxembourg to visit some World War II battle sites since they were closed when we visited before. We left for Luxembourg around lunch time Friday, after we had dropped the dogs at the kennel.

Our first stop in Luxembourg was Echternach, a town a friend had recommended we visit. It was super cute and we had some snacks and drinks in the town square, then did a short walk around town.

After Echternach, we drove the rest of the way to Luxembourg City. When we stayed before, we had the dogs with us so had to stay in a hotel on the outskirts of town. This time, we were directly in the city center. We unpacked at the hotel and then did a walk around the city center.

Since Luxembourg is a French speaking country, that means we could find Ryan’s favorite fast food chain, Pitaya, which serves Thai street food. We had dinner there and then a few drinks on the square and called it a night.

Saturday morning, we left Luxembourg City and drove further north to Ettelbruck. The town is dedicated to General Patton. We learned at the memorial museum, this is because he saved the town from the Nazis during WWII. We also learned so much about Luxembourg’s role in the resistance against the Nazis during the war.

After the museum, we did a short walk around the town and had coffee on the town square.

After a pit stop at McDonald’s, we went on to Diekirch, where we stopped at the Diekirch Military museum. Here, we learned even more about Luxembourg during WWII. They had a ton of military vehicles, which kept it interesting.

After Diekirch, we took a detour to drive past Vianden Castle. When I got out to take a picture, I was stopped by a French biker gang and was asked to take their picture. They started speaking French to me, but when they saw our license plate, they switched to very bad German, which made them all laugh at each other. I thought it was pretty funny too so I didn’t mention that English was my language.

Afterwards, we headed to the hotel. What is Memorial Day weekend for Americans, is a also a big travel weekend in Europe, due to it being between several national holidays. I had a hard time finding a last minute hotel so we ended up staying at a Golf Resort in the middle of no where, which ended up being pretty cool. We took a nap and then had dinner in the hotel restaurant.

We finished the night with drinks on the terrace. These are the longggg days of summer, and the sun isn’t going down until almost 10pm now.

Sunday morning, we started at Clervaux Abbey and Castle. After two years in Europe, I’m starting to get castle/abbey fatigue. I don’t need to go into every one anymore and mainly just drive by and take pictures from the outside.

Afterwards, we headed on to Bastogne, Belgium, which is famous for being the epicenter of the Battle of the Bulge. We started at the Bastogne Barracks Museum, which was really a collection of WWII military vehicles, which includes the first allied tank to break the line and reach Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge.

It wasn’t that busy of a museum; Matt and I commented that probably within the next 20 years, these smaller WW2 museums will close as those who are old enough to remember, aren’t around anymore to visit them. It is pretty sad and we felt better when a bus full of American tourists was being dropped off as we left.

Next, we headed over to the Bastogne War Museum. This Museum is pretty new and it was packed with people (also making us feel better about these memorials closing). We had to wait in quite a long line just to get in.

The tour is done by audio guide, which is narrated by four different people who were actually in Bastogne and whose paths crossed during the battle; an American soldier, a German soldier, a Belgian child, and a Belgian woman. The tour was interspersed with several interactive portions as well, which gave the history of the lead up to the War, and then the Battle, and then each persons’ life afterwards; told from each person’s perspective. It was awesome! Matt and I both said as we left that this was one of the best museums we had been too. Although neither one of us are big WW2 history buffs, it definitely pulled you in and got you emotionally attached, while still teaching the history.

One of the displays at the end was donated by a soldier in Bastogne who was from Bowie, MD, which is very close to where we’re from. Very cool.

After the museum, we headed to Liège, where we were staying the night. After making the hour drive, we made it to the city, only to drive around for another hour through closed streets and construction before we could even find the hotel. We did not enjoy our “tour” of the city. It was extremely dirty (we think there may have been a marathon that day that contributed to this), lots of homeless people heckling others on the sidewalk, and just a lot of stuff that gave us the impression this was not a safe city. Given our frustration at not even being able to find the hotel at first, and then our impression of the city, by the time we got there we decided to cancel our reservation and just drive home. We had seen enough of Liège.

This was a small blessing because it was so nice to return home early and get an extra day at home to catch up on things and just relax. Brooklyn returned from her trip on Monday and we spent the rest of the day taking it easy.