I just wanted to thank you all for all of your help in planning my trip with my husband and elderly parents. Your advice was incredibly helpful and the trip went off without a hitch—we are in the car now driving back home from the airport.
When I first started planning this trip, my parents were in great physical health but after my mother’s emergency surgery that caused us to postpone the trip from June til September and then my fathers skin cancer surgery in the interim, they aren’t the same 82 and 84 year old spry corvette driving, exercising daily parents I have always known. So this trip really has special meanings and memories for me especially now.
We went on this trip to bring my parents back to the first home they lived in 64 years ago when they were first married and my dad was stationed at the Landsberg Air Force base. We found the street and the house they lived in. As we were standing outside on the street in front of it, the owners walked out. I went over and explained why we were there and how my parents rented the upstairs of the home back in 1954. I called my parents over to where the owners and I were standing. The couple, in there early 70’s greeted my parents and the woman said “Your name Rifkin?” We practically fell over. This woman was the 10 year old girl who lived there with her mother who rented to my parents. Her husband was so excited to meet my parents saying that over the years her family had spoken of my parents many times. They invited us in, showed us where they used to live upstairs, got loads of pictures, reminisced about Johanna and her older sister and their mother and how her mother helped care for my brother who was born while they lived there. Pictures of her mother were on the wall. Spent over an hour with lots of videos as they talked and talked and reminisced. It was unbelievable.
You all helped to make this trip wonderful and I thank you. As for all of the posts back and forth on here and the other country forums, I can’t thank you enough for convincing me to reduce the luggage to just a 21” carryon each and two under the seat pieces. With them being less able-bodied now, extra luggage would have put a huge burden on us. My mother still packed her normal amount (about 20 blouses and sweaters, 6 pairs of pants,- thank God she’s a size 6 so there is less material-LOL-4 pairs of shoes and everything that you may possibly need from 4 flashlights for the hotel room for at night when it’s dark, sewing kits with spools of thread, 4 tubes of hydrocortisone cream in case she itchy shaking happens and everything else you can imagine. But I navigated the luggage space and made it work. The carryons are super heavy but with four wheels very easy to maneuver.
On the train to Germany and I can COMPLETELY see the wisdom in your luggage advice. Thank you for making my trip better and more manageable. This forum and your help has been invaluable.
By the way, I HIGHLY recommend Landhotel Endhart. Wonderful service, great breakfast the people at the front desk couldn’t have been nicer. Clean rooms and bathrooms. Loved it.
Thank you all!