A week in Zelenec

From Oberaurach we drove four hours to Zelenec in the Czech Republic, about 30 minutes from the centre of Prague.  We chose our Air Bnb because it was close ish to Prague and also not too far away from Mike's cousin Justin who lives in the Czech Republic with his wife and their three wee girls.  The boys were super excited to be spending time with some more kids and even more excited when we arrived at our accommodation and they discovered there was a back garden complete with swing set and playhouse.

We stopped in Plzn for lunch on our way through, mainly because it was a big-ish seeming city and we were passing by around lunch time.  It was a real gem!  And I wouldn't have minded spending more time there.  We found a restaurant with outdoor seating easily enough and ordered burgers, quesadillas, garlic bread and drinks and then laughed when all the food arrived and we realised that (true to form!) we had majorly over ordered.. the boys shared their burger and even half of one was almost a big as Callum's head.  I couldn't believe he actually managed to get it all down.

We were very lucky to spend loads of time with Justin, Lenka and the girls while we were there, especially considering their new bubba, Hero, was VERY new when we arrived.  Justin had the whole week off work so we had local guides everywhere we went ;) and the kids had a week long playdate with their cousins.  They were very sad to leave at the end of the week.

We spent two days sightseeing in Prague, including joining Lenka's brother for one of his guided walking tours which was really informative (although the kids, particularly Daniel, found it quite hard going listening to so much information as well as walking for three hours).  Prague was as beautiful as I'd read about and there was so much interesting history, I could have happily spent a couple of (child free, haha) weeks exploring there, let alone the rest of the Czech Republic.  

In Prague with the Crightons

Justin and Lenka also took us to an amazing park called Mirakulum.  Too many different play areas (for all ages) to count, loads of opportunities to climb, run, jump and climb some more, farm animals, underground tunnels, huge swings...  It was so cool that I spent a lot of the day dreaming about how we could possibly do something similar in New Zealand.  It probably wouldn't have been quite so much fun in a howling Hutt notherly, so I'm not sure how well the idea would translate ;)

Of course the week flew by and before we knew it we were packing up and driving to our next stop, back in Germany for five nights near Munich.  We did manage to spend half a day in Cesky Krumlov on our way (not really on the way, but it was a bit far for a day trip from Zelenec).  What a beautiful town!  Again, we could have easily spend a lot more time there.  And the kids enjoyed their icecreams, though you probably could have guessed that by now.

Beautiful Cesky Krumlov