O Tannenbaum O Tannenbaum

This past saturday we decided to go on a day trip to Germany and the Netherlands.

We left home at around 8am for an hour and a half by car to Aachen, Germany. We love that little german town and its cute Christmas market. We were told that it would open at 10am but it actually didn't open until 11am. So we had an hour and a half of chilling in town. Unfortunately, it was a rainy and cold day. We often took refuge in nice bakeries. After drooling over the goodies, we gave up a bought a bunch of pastries. 

     

Once the market was finally open, we walked around for a bit until the kids saw the little carousels and jumped in one. It was fun to see them having fun. 

There was also a wedding at the downtown chapel

There were some beautiful Christmas crafts and delicious sausages. I think Juri and I especially liked the food, we like eating, unfortunately for my figure, but I can't resist. 

     jz

Juri was in heaven, he's a meat eater and a big eater in general. On a side note, he eats a lot, and still gets hungry 30min or 1hour after a meal. Eversince he started working, he lost a lot of weight (which he doesn't like, it's like telling me that I gained weight) because he doesn't have time to snack several times a day and HAS to eat a sandwich for lunch (which is not considered a meal by him, and doesn't have a choice because there are only sandwhich places around his workplace). 

I have to say that we ate a lot in Aachen. We talked about coming back some morning just to have breakfast and shop for some nice sausages. We're also most likely come back in summer too.

We left after 1pm for a half hour drive to Maastricht, the Netherlands.

We went there last year already and wanted to come back again because it's such a cute and fun market for the kids. The kids had a blast going on different rides, the big ferry wheel, carrousel, santa's sleigh... This time of the day, it was a bit more sunny and thus, more enjoyable.

 Maastricht is also a cute little town with lots of people riding their bicycles. We'll be back there in summer too.

Then at the end of the day, we headed back to Brussels, an hour or so drive. We stopped at Brico to buy our artificial Christmas tree. We were debating between buying a fresh one like the past 2 years or just investing in a fake one. I personally like artificial because I grew up with that, but getting one now meant that we'll be here for a while, which doesn't excite me very much. Juri grew up with fresh one, but the fact that he had to carry the tree from the store to the house, which he did last year, helped in the decision making. 

So we got a medium-size and fluffy tree. We decorated it when the kids were sleeping (it was a bit late when we came home and it was an exhausting day) and while watching Miss France 2009 election on TV. 

Sunday morning, the kids  were very excited to see the decorated Christmas tree in our tiny living room (pictures to come).