The journey to Reutlingen was hair raising to say the least; Dave wasn't driving but the roads were covered with snow and it came down continuously throughout the journey.

Once we arrived we had four days with our wonderful German friends. From the moment we arrived they made us feel completly at home and even managed to feed two vegetarians!

It was amazing to see everyone and we had an action packed few days. The weather made no difference to our plans and in fact it gave us the opportunity to ski and sledge. We also managed to see Lichtenstein castle covered in snow which really is beautiful; apparently it is one of the castles that Walt Disney used as inspiration for Sleeping Beauty's castle. The freezing temperatures (-15°c during the night) gave us a chance to see a partially frozen waterfall. The walk to the waterfall was quite dangerous due to the ice and also the constant snowball attack that we came under from Tom and Melina!

After the German Christmas Market in Munich we thought that Reutlingen wouldn't be able to compete but it turned out to be wonderful; full of atmosphere and plenty to see. The Gluwein wasn't bad either! We also managed to go to a Chocolate Christmas Market which was just as good as it sounds. One stall sold 39 different flavours of hot chocolate. Mmmmmmm

Other highlights included suprising Tom on his 9th Birthday, being shown how to drink strawberry schnapps by Dagmar and Andy, tasting some Gentleman's Jack Daniels whiskey by Harold (a real Jake Daniels connoisseur), falling off the 'Sack Lift', watching a video of our mad German friends dancing in flippers, swimming hats and plastic bags, Harold's driving and generally laughing and having a fantastic time with people we really wish we could see more of!

Thank you to all our German friends for looking after us so well.