sweets, sweets, more sweets and some beer

I can't tell you how many sweets Kohen and Beckett have been given in the past 36 hours.  Chocolate santas from the taxi driver, lollipops from the beer guy at the Christmas market, packages of gummi bears on their hotel pillows, chocolate santa lollipop from a lady at the train station.  They are having such a great time!

We left Sonderborg, Denmark on tuesday after four totally great days with our friends.  We spent most of the time up there playing in the snow and drinking too much wine:)  Kohen says his favorite thing in Denmark was ice skating for the first time.  I'm not sure what Beckett will remember about Sonderborg but I'm pretty sure some people up there will remember the little boy who decided to become a cat in the middle of the grocery store.  It's his new favorite thing, he'll drop to his hands and knees, scrunch up his face, start meowing, tell you to pet him and demand you call him by his cat name.  It's pretty hilarious and the humor appears to be cross cultural:)

After leaving Sonderborg we stopped for a day in Schleswig where Brian had a concert.  We hit up our first Christmas Market then the kids and I took the train to Hamburg and Brian caught up with us after his concert.  It was a VERY wise decision of mine to book a hotel across the street from the Hauptbanhof.  One parent, super tired kids, luggage, snow......

This morning we started the day with Miniatur Wunderland!  This is the largest model train place in the world and Kohen has wanted to go here since he first heard about it at the ripe old age of two.  To appease our train crazy kid we google model train videos and several years ago came across one from Miniatur Wunderland.  When we knew we would be traveling through Hamburg we made sure we would have time to check out the "wunderland."  The place was seriously cool.  I'm not sure what is happening to me but my four year old is turning me into a model train geek.

Hamburg is beautiful.  I'm not sure what I expected but the old warehouses along the river, the rathaus, St. Nikolai.....it's all been more interesting and beautiful than I imagined. The Christmas market here is great and now we've officially started the gluhwein and brat portion of the tour.  Today's gluhwein winner was the one where the guy put an extra shot of rum in it:)  So, so tasty.  I think the best part of being here right now is just seeing so many people out celebrating.  We walked from the market to a brewery for dinner and there were people everywhere and decorations and lights on every street.  The market was overflowing with people drinking their gluhwein and hanging with friends.  Germany at Christmas time is a happy, happy place.

Berlin tomorrow.