Saxony-Swiss, Königstein Fortress, and our last days in Deutschland

Ah yes...what a awesome place Saxony-Swiss! First off there is the mountains and beautiful scenery. On top of that there is a ton of history and some cool touristy stuff (organ grinder = purty nifty)! Joni´s camera was dead (sad story, no time for a funeral though) so only I (Cara) took any pics. Too be on the safe side therefore I tried to take a minimum of 500 so I think perhaps there may be a few winnners among them :P Volker playing the zither was lovely, it looked quite challenging to play and sounded wonderful. He played some hymns and some old folks songs and because the zither was such an old instrument I thought some sepia pics were in order, the glasses gave them cool depth perhaps, or just made the pics look odd (u can decide, but I liked them ;) Now Joni and I are packing our suitcases to come home...its QUITE depressing. We will miss the people in Germany, the beautiful scenery, the perfect weather (especially Cara returning to the oven she calls home), and of course the food. Joni and I have become quite addicted to Apfel Schorle *, its great stuff, yes we have developed a bit of a drinking problem. We are also probably going to suffer from chocolate withdrawls when we get home so to prevent this terrible phenomenon we purchased enough chocolate to begin a small candy store WOOPY!!! We had better get back to haphazardly shoving everything into our suitcases with reckless abandon and that means ending the blog here...bye folks...Joni will add more to this when she gets back to the states!
*Apfel Schorle = fizzy water + apple juice (non-alchoholic. folks, did we worry u for a minute)

A close up of Volker playing the Zither. It looked quite confusing to play.

Volker playing the Zither. It was quite beautiful. Very few people learn to play it anymore, so it was quite unique.

This is the drawbridge at Königstein Fortress. It was quite neat actually seeing some of the things we've read or heard about, in person!

This is Königstein Fortress. Yes, it looks a lot like a castle, but it was just for protection basically. It had like 5 differenet levels and gates and walls before you could get in.

In the wine cellar at the fortress. They drank wayyyyy too much wine. This cellar was like as big as a football field. And über cold.

A view from the top of the Fortress.

This is some of the neat rock formations nearby the Fortress. It was the Elbe Sandstone Mountains (in english) and it was at the Saxon Switzerland National Park (also the english version).

This is one view from the top of the Fortress.

On the way up to the Fortress, we saw an organ grinder. It was a real authentic one! He was only missing the monkey!

Castle, Czech Republic, Saigon Restaurant

The last few days have been quite fun. Perhaps the funnest part for me (Cara) was staying in the garden house and watching the sunset. Also, we visited a castle, I mean how cool is that!!! I took a bunch of photos from the window of the castle. Talk about a lot of steps to the top of the tower. We also viewed the Czech Republic from afar and then up close at the Czech markets right across the border. The sellers stand outside and shout BILLIG, BILLIG meaning CHEAP, CHEAP and were always trying to sell Joni and I cigarettes, poor them, they didn´t have any luck :( The Asian restaurant was beautifully decorated, with all bamboo furniture, and delicious, exotic-authentic food...yum, yum! Today we went and visited two older ladies,mother and daughter professed recently and heard their testimony and had tea and cake...lots of cake, yummy cake. The whole thing was very SWEET. The flower photos are from the garden there. Overall the last few days have been just dandy.Another flower picture, with butterflies!

Cara is extremely good with close-up flower pics. This one even looks abstractyish.

This was actually the chair where a newlywed couple sat when Heidi and Volker were here before. But we weren't the couple. Check out the cool napkins.

This is the entrance to Saigon Restaurant. It was pretty much superfantastic.

This is inside the Saigon Restaurant. It was a Vietnamese restuarant that had EVERYTHING made out of bamboo. Also, everything was handmade by the owner!

Cara and I walked to the hunter's stand and climbed up and sang hymns. To the horses. They were very attentive. We think they professed.

The beautiful sunset we saw when we were spending the night at the garden house (just me and Cara).

There was everything and anything for sale at the Czech Market!

The Czech Market, in the Czech Republic. The funny thing was, all the people selling things were asian!

We were standing in Germany and this is a mountain in the Czech Repulic!

This was the Sharfenstein Castle, it was only a little castle, but it was pretty interesting anyways.

Here is the tower in the castle, that we climbed.

The windows were fantastic!

The view from the wonderful windows!

Yesterday we climbed to the top of a high tower that overlooks Eibenstock. Cara almost died after climbing too many steps (this is Cara writing btw). Then we went to another tower but we didn´t climb it, we just drooled over the closed ice cream stand :( Today we went to a beautiful waterfall and Cara and Joni took too many photos and almost killed themselves...AGAIN. Next, we ate at a cool German restaurant (see pics). After that we said our goodbyes to Jessica and took her to the train station...boo hoo. Finally, we went and traveled the whole world (in miniature). Then Joni drove stick shift (something she doesn´t know how to do) and Cara almost died AGAIN! After all those near death experiences the past few days have been quite exciting.
Photo comments by Joni!

Cara's photography has reached a new low.

This was inside the amazing restaurant.

The outside of the restaurant. This was originally the way they burned wood to make it into charcoal, they set it up like this and burned it.

We strong people held up the Leaning Tower of Pisa, but only for a short while, so: NEWS FLASH: the Tower tipped over.

My torch burned out.

Seeing Jessica off at the train station, but this train wasn't actually her train...

This was the gorgeous waterfall we took 1,072 pics of. We climbed all around it, and then pushed Roland off the top so he is no more. It was NIFTY.

The tower in Eibenstock that overlooks the town.

Throwing peas (that were in Cara's camera case (that Willy gave her at the garden)) at each other. Actually, I (Joni) caught 3.

Our adventures in Germany thus far...

Germany is pretty much amazing! We've now been in Germany for a week, and have until August 7.
Our iteneray was as follows:
Thursday July 23- July 26 was Otterbach Convention (also called Bergheim).
Monday July 27 We stayed at convention to help with clean up and tear down. We left and spent the night in a youth hostel in Rothenburg o.b.T. (ob der Tauber). This town was a walled city and pretty much beautiful. We have 1.072 pictures or so of it.
Tuesday July 28 we toured the town some more and then left for Heidi and Volker Werk's house in Eibenstock.
Wednesday July 29 we explored Eibenstock, rode in a bobsled up and down a hill, and went to a huge lake with many fun water activities.
Today, Thursday July 30, we were kind of lazy and went shopping and toured Eibenstock (on FOOT).

Our cuteness, but Cara doesn't like her sunburned nose.

.... sorry boys, 18 from now on, only men

....sorry girls, 18 from now on, only women

No words to describe the beautifulness.

The houses are all different pretty colors, and they all have window boxes with flowers.

Cara and I by the sign of Otterbach.

This is beautiful. According to Roland, this is the part of Germany where everything looks brown.

This picture is one of the most famous scenes in all of Germany!

This is some of the people at our hymn sing. The countries represented here are: Holland, Germany, Columbia, Great Britain, Madagascar, United States, and Australia.

This is the pic of most of the young kids that went on a walk together! In this picture alone, we have some kids from all of the same countries except Australia and Madagascar, and Mexico is represented instead.

We fly in to Frankfurt Wednesday July 22, and then go straight to convention.