Our European Adventure Begins...Day 1

Well, first, I must say that we were nervous about the beginning of this adventure. On Friday, March 5th, 6 days before our trip begins, Colin came home from school with either a stomach bug or possibly food poisoning. We immediately started getting concerned about who would be next & how this would effect our trip. We kept Sheridan away from Colin for about 24 hours, which surprisingly turned out to be a difficult task (I guess that's a good sign!). Then, anytime, I had to touch Colin or anything he touched, I immediately went to the hand sanitizer to wash my hands! Thankfully, I will report that we were all fine & the rest of us stayed well!

So, our adventure began at 5:30 a.m. today. Greg decided to wake the kids up early in the hopes that they would be tired enough to sleep well on the plane & also maybe adjust better to the time difference. Not shocking at all, it wasn't hard to get them out of bed...they both were SUPER EXCITED that the day had finally come for us to go to Germany! Even though Greg set Sheridan's alarm for the earlier time, she practically jumped out of bed with excitement.

We still took the kids to school for a few hours today while we finished packing. For Sheridan, this allowed her to finish taking some tests & finish up some schoolwork. So, thankfully, she won't return to school with any make-up work to do!

The Parking Shuttle Ride to the Airport

So, we picked up the kids at school at 11:45 am, picked up lunch on the way, headed to an airport parking spot, loaded & road the parking shuttle, and arrived at the airport to check in about 12:30 pm. Not too bad! Now, getting through security is another story! Thanks to American Airlines baggage policies & fees (even for foreign travel), we were only allowed to check 4 bags without being charged any additional fees. So, we took through security for carry-on: 4 "personal items" (a.k.a. 3 STUFFED backpacks & 1 oversized shoulder bag), 2 rolling carry-on suitcases, 4 coats, & 2 booster seats, plus we had to take off our shoes for them to be scanned too! Since we brought our laptop & Colin's nebulizer & some liquid medications with us, we had to take those items out of our bags & had to have them either scanned or inspected. So, it probably took us about 20 minutes to get through security, but I have to keep telling myself, "They are keeping us safe, they are keeping us safe, they are trying to keep us safe!"

Our plane was already at the gate..."waiting" for us!

So, we finally get to our gate around 1:00 pm, for our 2:00 boarding & 2:35 pm departure. The kids want to get on the plane NOW! So, what else to do when you are too excited & can't sit still??? Why not dance around! Here are some pics of our travel buddies:

Listening to the airplane engines

Well, that's about all for Day 1. Really, the most exciting event of the day was getting through security & getting on the plane! Day 1 was spent just travelling to Germany! Our flight was about 9 1/2 hours long. Greg was kind of right about the kids sleeping on the plane. Sheridan fell asleep within the first 15 minutes of the flight, but Colin did not. We gave both kids some benadryl later in the flight, which helped them both to sleep for part of the trip.

Our adventure is to be continued....