Our Travels in France, Germany & Austria (Part 1)

Some of the many perks of homeschooling that we really enjoy are being able to choose to pick up and pack up for a trip away whenever we please - and the freedom of taking school on the road.
World-schooling!  

So you probably remember last year when we did our big family road trip through France? We strolled through flower gardens in Caen, we visited Paris, The Eiffel Tower, we went to Disneyland and visited an amazing Basilica in Liseux.

Well fast forward to this September - Jared and I celebrated our 15 year anniversary (yup - I've officially been with him for longer than I haven't!)  - and to celebrate in style we got a little more brave and planned a massive road trip through France, Germany and Austria!

Just our family of 6 and our trusty Jeep.

It was a long, exciting, fun and incredibly magical adventure for us all!

I'm going to break this post up into 4 parts - because there's way too much to fit into one post!

The day before our anniversary we packed ourselves up, loaded up the roofbox on our Jeep and drove to the ferry, we boarded that evening and we wanted to get an early start - and eat some dinner along the way. Once we boarded the ferry and got the Jeep parked up down on the car deck we went straight to our cabin and got settled in for the night, we're all fine on the water except Riley, who brought some sea-bands with her for nausea - they were so good, I really recommend them, she felt fine the whole trip.

The girls on their top bunks!

We all slept surprisingly well, it was a smooth crossing and unlike our trip last year, the cabin wasn't a million degrees - it was a nice temperature.
When we woke up on Friday morning we took our time getting up and ready beacause we knew we wouldn't dock until about 4pm that afternoon so we had some time on the ship to just relax and go up on deck to watch the waves, which the kids love - and there was a little playroom in the main area of the ship that we spent some time in.

That day was also mine and Jared's anniversary, so, knowing we would be on the ship for the most of the day we had brought a little cake with us - which we enjoyed in our cabin.

After cake we relaxed in our cabin, Ruben had a nap and the rest of us watched about 6 episodes of Storage Wars (funnily enough, the kids love it!) on the laptop while we waited to arrive.

With 'Tigey' his Lion 

We docked at 4pm, which meant it was 5pm by the time we were back in the car and driving onto French soil - the kids were happy to be on solid ground again, so before having some dinner we stopped into a local playground in Cherbourg - we had a bit of a drive ahead of us that evening before we arrived for the night in Evreux.

Hello France!

It was dark by the time we arrived at our hotel for the night in Evreux, the kids were tired but in really good spirits - they all got washed up and ready for bed and settled down - but were still chatting and laughing until about 10pm when they all passed out. They had their own little room opening out from ours, we squashed their two beds together and made a big one for them to all snuggle up in.

Quick hotel elevator pic before we head back on the road

Saturday morning we all got up early and had our showers and packed back up the car to start our long journey to Strasbourg, which is close to the German border, we were literally driving right across France in a day! We made a stop that day in Château-Thierry to visit the WW1 monument there, which was just incredible, it's a really nice way to commemorate the many many soliders who died in WW1 and it's in the most beautiful spot overlooking an unbelievable view - pictures don't do it justice!

A stop at Ikea, they had obviously been expecting me...

Back on the road, we were headed to Strasbourg for the night - it was a really long drive, we broke it up into chunks so we could stretch our legs at time and stop for food. We arrived really late that night at our hotel in Strasbourg - the room had an upstairs cubby for the kids to sleep in, which they were thrilled with - it's a fun design for a room. It was so late by the time we settled into our room that the two littles fell asleep before we had a chance to get PJs on them!

*Side note - I took a photo that night of Radley and Ruben as they slept - and when I woke up the next morning Ruben had put his arm around his sister, it was so sweet I had to get another picture before they woke!

One thing we love about staying in hotels in France is watching The Simpsons on TV in French - the voices are spot on, especially Lisa's - but Marge's is hilarious! So we settled down and watched some French TV with our big girls and then got our rest for the night - the next day we would be heading over the boarder to Germany!