Not sure when this happened, but my little boy is now 14 years old. He is 5’10” and weighs next to nothing soaking wet, despite surviving on a diet of chips, ice cream, and peanut butter sandwiches. he had a 3 hour baseball practice on Saturday, so we decided to celebrate on Sunday instead.
We were all planning on taking the bus to Bad Soden for the Wine Fest, but Ty was tuckered out from practice. Lily, Jay and I went. These Germans sure do know how to do a festival. This was the 8th day of people sitting around drinking wine and eating yummy food. Still going strong!
Speaking of yummy food, here is where the best bratwurst I have ever eaten in my life was prepared.
Ty wanted to go for a family hike for his birthday, so on Sunday we headed to Saalburg and explored the end of the Roman Empire. It is crazy to think how far north the Romans controlled.
The basements of the wooden structures remain in tact.
And the wall surrounding the Fort is incredible. I wonder if the people that built the wall ever imagined that we would be looking at the same structure almost 2,000 years later.
I loved this hedge. Get it? 😉
The hike took us up to a point where we could see quite a ways out over the beautiful German landscape.
Enjoying the moment
Catching my breath
That little pile of stones was part of the Roman Limes, marking the end of the Roman territory.
We are approximately 832 miles away from Rome. That’s roughly Iowa to Pennsylvania.
Our luck of finding an oasis continues! Kaycee was pretty happy about the rest stop. I’d love to know how many steps he takes on our hikes – back and forth and left and right.
The restaurant was at the base of this tower. I spy Ty (the only one with enough energy to climb up and check out the view).
5.5 miles would take a normal person just over 2 hours to complete. We took our time and were out exploring and eating for about 4 hours. A bit of elevation on this hike but it wasn’t too bad.

Sunday night we had dinner with some friends. They grilled all sorts of food so we walked out of there stuffed. Overall it was a great ending to a great week.