Bonn and Koln

For our very first excursion in Germany, we set off toward Bonn.  Bonn is a city about 2.5 hours north of us.  Bonn used to be the Capitol of West Germany, but was replaced as Capitol by Berlin in 1990.  Bonn is also home to the University of Bonn.  (part of the University is housed in an old palace!  We drove by, but I wasn't able to get a good picture).  We met up with Fabi, who lives in Bonn, and he took us around the city, and to one of his favorite Italian restaurants.  (We don't do a lot of adventurous foods when we have the kiddos with us.) and then to the HARIBO shop.

The HARIBO shop has gummies as far as the eye can see, and many of them are not available in the states, so we all decided to walk and choose some that we've never seen before.

That is when we came across these.............

They also had some rides, little outside of the grocery store style rides.... my kids loved those more than the gummies!

Walking around, outside the train station in Bonn

On the train heading to Koln (Cologne)

We hopped on the train to Koln, so we could see this..... The Dome of Koln  (It's also called the Dome of Cologne...)  Isn't it gorgeous?  

I LOVE the ceilings!  I wasn't able to get a great picture, but there's a golden sarcophagus here that is said to house the 3 wise men, as in THE 3 wise men!  That area of the church was blocked off this time, but I know we'll be going back.  When the weather is warmer, we're going to climb to the top of the Dome.  Fabi says it takes about 30 or so minutes to climb it....... yeah.

For a small donation, the kids were allowed to light candles.  I think they enjoyed lighting them, though none of us are really sure what exactly we light the candles for.  

We had such a good time.  It was really cold though, and when we left it started to snow pretty hard.  It took us a long time to get home, because they didn't plow the roads.  It was a little scary.  I can't wait to go back out and see more of Germany!