So Much to Say

I've got a lot to discuss, but not a lot of time.

First and most importantly: Josiah is OK. He had his appointment at the clinic in Boblingen yesterday. The doctor did an ultrasound on his neck and then ordered a chest X-ray to find out if the lymph nodes in Josiah's chest were affected. He showed me the X-ray afterwards and pointed out a couple of areas that were "suspicious". The doctor passed the X-ray on to a radiologist for further examination. That doctor called me back this morning and said that there is nothing to worry about, but that the lymph nodes in his neck and chest appear to be swollen. We are going back to the clinic on August 18th for another check. We don't know what will happen next. All that we know is that there doesn't appear to be any cancer.

It was a rather long night.

Here is Austria in a very quick recap:

• Our hotel was wonderful. It is a family-owned and operated hotel, fairly small. The family was there to welcome us and help us with our luggage. We had a great room with a separate bedroom for the kids (always a plus). It was very pleasant to have such great hospitality. The family even had their dog in the hotel and running around the grounds. The kids loved her. There was a playground, pedal cars, a pool and best of all--the huge trampoline. See pictures.
• We spent Saturday at The Eagle's Nest. Josiah kept asking "Are we at Hitler's house yet?". We had to ride a bus up the mountain to the actual house. I can't find adequate words to describe the beauty of the scenery. I will let the pictures help. The Eagle's Nest is actually not very big. Trivia: there aren't any bedrooms there. Hitler only went up to chill out and hang with diplomats and Eva. He had a house Obersalzburg, the town below the mountain. Interesting.
• We have concluded that the Band of Brothers episodes dealing with The Eagle's Nest and Zell-Am-See were not done on location. We visited Zell-Am-See and drove through Berchtesgaden, too. It was still a thrill to visit places that the BoBs have been. Hans and I watched the final episode again last night. I cry every single time. Sheesh.
• We visited the salt mines outside of Salzburg on Sunday. Dora took us on a very interesting drive...let's just say that she has a habit of directing us onto narrow, one-lane "shortcuts" through the countryside. A little hair-raising, but charming to see the country that people on the main roads miss.
• One has to be 4 years of age to go through the salt mines, so Hans and Josiah went while Annika and I had a picnic at a playground and enjoyed the view. The tour was supposed to last an hour. For some reason, Hans and Josiah's tour lasted almost two hours, so needless to say, I was getting a little worried by the time they finally emerged. Being my mother's daughter, I was picturing all sorts of horrible cave-ins and etc. They were fine, of course. Josiah emerged with a tiny shaker of salt and informed me that I could cook with it. He had a great time.
• We tried to go to Salzburg, but we were exhausted and it was very hot, so we drove aimlessly around town for a few minutes and then headed back to the hotel and the pool.

That's about it. I could go into more detail, but I have laundry to do, shoes and milk and bananas to buy, letters to write and etc., etc. Sorry for the short post. Enjoy the pictures.