Getting To Germany

Well, we made it.  Can't say that went as smoothly as we hoped, but we survived.

Our first flight was 9 1/2 hours from Dallas to London.  We scheduled a night flight hoping the boys would sleep for a majority of the flight.  We were hoping it would make the flight it self a little more bearable and hoped it would give them enough rest for the remainder of our trip.  I was second guessing myself a few days prior in our decision for a night flight but I'm glad it is what we choose.  I ended up giving Blaine a pinch of Dramamine and he slept for about 6 hours on the plane (I probably could have given him a tad more).  Ryan slept for about 5, and Colin probably slept the most for about 7.  Tim managed about an hour and I maybe got about 10 minutes.

When we got to London we had about three hour layover before our next flight into Frankfurt.  For me, I think the reality of moving to a different country started to sink in at this point.  While I know most are excited for us it really wasn't what we wanted.  Thankfully, everyone got some sleep on our next flight.  It was rest that was definitely needed.

Frankfurt had to be the worst part of the whole trip.  We picked up all our luggage, 13 pieces to include all the car seats (I'll comment more on this later!) and headed to....who knows really.  I'm not sure we really had a clue.  When we arrived we were expecting someone to meet us somewhere, at some point to tell us what to do next.  Getting off the plane at Frankfurt was as far as we had planned.  We weren't told anything that would happen after that point.  We weren't sure if we were staying the night in Frankfurt or getting on a bus to Bamberg.  So, we looked at Tim's orders and it said if there was no liaison to greet us to go to the USO.  Sounds simple enough, right?  Well, we were in Terminal 2.  The USO was in Terminal 1.  We have two carts full of luggage, one in a stroller, and two more very tired and hungry kiddos.  The kicker was that you had to take the Sky Train to get to the other Terminal.  You can't take the carts that carry your luggage onto the train.  If you've ever been to ride one of those things you know how fast the doors open and close.  We had to hand throw all of our bags on, and hand throw all of them off.  Thankfully there were some good samaritans who helped us getting off the train, otherwise some of our bags would have kept going.  We had about three more levels down we had to go before making it to the USO.  We made it down two when we couldn't find an elevator (for all of our luggage) to go down to the bottom floor.  That's when we just parked it.  The boys and I found a bench while Tim went down to the USO.  About 15 minutes later, he returned.  The USO was already closed for the day.  Oh joy!

So, we finally did option 3 on Tim's orders and headed to the hotel that was adjacent to the airport.  This was another trip with all the luggage and then more waiting while Tim got us checked in.  And of course, the luggage carts weren't allowed in the hotel either, so we made about three trips up with bags.  We landed in Frankfurt at 4:55 PM and we made it into our room a little after 8 PM.  That's 3 hours of wandering around the airport!!!!  If only we had know earlier that the USO would have been closed, we would have gone straight to the hotel.  By the time we made it to the room we were both so tired we didn't want to walk anywhere.  So we sucked it up and ran up a nice room service bill to which half we didn't eat.  We hadn't eaten since...I don't remember when, but we weren't as hungry as we thought we were.

On Tim's orders there was listed an after hours number listed for the USO that he could call.  We tried dialing that number about 20 different ways.  We called the front desk and asked them how to dial it.  Nothing worked.  We gave up.  We were tired and frustrated and went to bed having no idea where we were supposed to be the next day or at what time.  First thing Tuesday morning Tim went down to the USO and FINALLY got some answers!  We had to hang around for a few more hours before our bus ride to Bamberg.  We were able to find some breakfast and purchase a few more snacks for the bus.  There were TONS of soldiers/families waiting to be bused to their assigned post.  They did one post at a time and we were one of the last to go.  We loaded the bus and were on our way around 11:30 AM.  We made a stop in Schweinfurt to drop off a few soldiers then drove to Bamberg.  When we got off the bus two other soldiers from Tim's unit were there to load our bags and get us to where we needed to go.

In retrospect we definitely would have packed differently!  There's a part of me that doesn't feel so bad cause I saw single soldiers with four bags a piece.  We were a family of five with 10 bags, 3 car seats, and 4 backpacks.  Still.  We had a lot of smaller suitcases.  Had I known, or thought about, how much we would have to carry them around, I would have gotten larger suitcases.  With flying overseas you have a higher weight limit as well.  I probably could have fit all of the boys stuff into one large suitcase...instead of the three small ones.  We packed about 10 days worth of clothes for everyone and we could have possibly gone down to 7.  I packed each of the boys a blanket for the plane and we probably could have done without as well.  I brought toys and coloring stuff for the boys on the plane, but since we had a night flight I probably could have brought less and just put the remainder in the suitcase for them to use once we got here.  There's that part of me that wants to do it over so I could do it "better", but the other part of me really doesn't want to make that trip again until 3 years from now when we are coming back for good.  Looks like I have some suitcases to sell between now and then!

We are currently in guest housing and will hopefully hear something about permanent housing tomorrow.  I'm not too hopeful on getting out of here soon though.  Everything on post is within a 1 mile distance.  The Commissary though is at the furthest point from where we are and I'm not sure Colin would make the walk very well.  There is an on post bus system that operates 7 days a week, so we plan on trying that out this weekend.  Right outside guest housing is a playground which we utilized twice yesterday.  Thankfully the weather hasn't been extremely horrible yet!  Yesterday is was around 40.  No snow.  We are so thankful for that!  It has allowed us to get out a bit and walk to the Shoppette a few times to get a few needed items.  I think it's supposed to drop down to the 30's with some light rain/snow this weekend.  I'm going to need to locate some snow boots for the boys soon!

Tim has had to jump right in and start with 5:30 AM wake ups.  Thankfully no PT yet though.  He did some more in-processing yesterday morning but then was able to have the afternoon off.  I believe he has a full schedule today.  Yesterday, he also received the news that we were dreading.  Tim deploys to Afghanistan in the beginning of June.  Tim was certain he'd deploy once he found out what unit he was assigned to, I just wasn't thinking it would be so soon.  I was thinking September/October/November time frame.  Although we both knew it was inevitable, my heart aches and I just want to skip ahead to the end of the deployment.  The only good thing is that it will be a 9 month deployment instead of a full year.  I was hoping he would tell me six, but I'll still take 9 over 12.  

The trip to get here was exhausting in itself and then getting the news of Tim's deployment the morning after just puts a heaviness on our first few days here.  Our bodies are still adjusting to the time difference and our stomachs are still adjusting to the food difference.  I think adjusting to the difference in weather will be one of the hardest!  We don't have a full kitchen in the guest housing so we plan on eating in the DFAC for most of our meals.  The boys finally slept a whole night last night (still sleeping actually) and I hope to get a simple routine going with them to help keep us sane while we are waiting for a house.  Hopefully tonight Tim and I will be able to sleep through the night!  I'll try and post some pics soon!