Austria - Vienna

The bakery at Demels (a famous coffee house in Vienna)

One of the Easter markets - beautiful eggs - covered (ruined) with snow

Mia was in heaven with all of the horsedrawn carriages :-)

The kids at the top of the Stephansdom

View of Vienna from the top of the Stephansdom

The Jewish memorial in the Jewish Quarter of Vienna - the walls look like books, on a shelf, that are turned the wrong way (symbolism for stories that will never be told)

The kids got to make Easter bunnies out of Marzipan - super cute!

Mia at another Easter Market... (with all of the snow, it really felt like a Christmas Market :-))

Inside the Schönbrunn Palace - the summer home for the Hapsburgs (not too shabby :-)

Bryan and I at the Schönbrunn Palace

Beautiful grounds at the Palace

My 2 favorite girls :-)

Bailey at the Schönbrunn Palace - she was particularly excited to learn that this is where Marie Antoinette lived as a young girl (she is learning about the French Revolution in school). Camden just finished learning about World War I, and thought it was very cool that this was the same family of the Arch Duke of Austria - Franz Ferdinand, whose assassination sparked World War I. Lastly, an wierd fact: Hitler, Stalin, and Franz Ferdinand were all here at Schoenbrunn at the same time in 1913.

Camden - taking in a little fun sledding with his new buddy (not seen)

After the weekend skiing, we went to Vienna for a few days. The cousin of my best friend growing up lives there, and he and his wife were super kind to host us. My kids all had a great time with their family, and we really enjoyed touring the city with "locals" :-). The funny thing was that Vienna had record cold temperatures that had not been seen for over 130 years. They are somewhat famous for their Easter Markets (very similar to our Christmas Markets), and the displays were completely covered in snow. Luckily, after skiing, we were prepared clothes-wise, so it wasn't too bad. I thought that it was actually kind of neat to see all of the famous sites covered with snow. I didn't realize that Vienna had over 2 million people - such a beautiful city!!!