Trier before Rick Steves Tour

You could go to Luxemburg City for the evening. It is only 50 minutes away on the train. Last train back is at 10:50 pm. This if your tour starts in July or later, as there is replacement bus service on the line in June for track work. Saturday morning, you could travel on a Rhineland Pfalz ticket to Cochem for 27 euro total. The 14:29 return would get you back to Trier at 15:36 with just enough time to make the 16:00 tour meeting.
Edit_ Other ideas, there are some short boat tours on the Mosel for 1 or 2 hours. Also on Saturday morning, you could take a combination train/bus to Bernkastel-Kues, the wine capital. Return at 14:00 to get back by 15:00 for your 16:00 meeting.

That replacement bus service is a touch inconvenient, as I learned a couple of weeks ago. It does collect at the Trier station but only goes just into Luxembourg to Wasserbillig which is the first station on the Luxembourg side of the border. I drove to Wasserbillig to avoid it and took the train from there after getting cheap Lux fuel for the car (ulterior motive). The local trains now left running now the IC one is stopped do stop an awful lot, but have nice scenery.

Normally the IC train makes fewer stops my memory tells me.

The package you get with your tour includes a booklet with suggestions on things not on the tour to do before & after tour. I think a river cruise is one of the ideas for Trier.

Yes, Stan, I did see info in my booklet. We were looking at maybe a river cruise, but read it may be kind of boring?? I know what might be boring for one person might not be the same for another. Just was wondering if anyone had done these extras and what they thought.

Diane, we are on the GAS tour in Sept. We decided to stay in Bacharach the night before (about half way to Trier from Frankfurt), and make a leisurely trip to Trier the next morning. Spending the day of the tour relaxing and checking out the marketplace and the neighborhood around hotel. We understood that cruising the river would be more of a ferry ride somewhere and back.

Stan, we will be touring four days in Paris on our own before we arrive in Trier. We will be arriving on the Friday before our GAS tour starts. We may try to catch up on laundry and just have some downtime before the RS tour starts, walking around etc. I've been looking at Info on Paris that I need to really read up on Trier. We may be on same tour:)

Based on the online listing of what's included in the GAS tour, it sounds like you won't visit the Archeological/ Rheinsches Landesmuseum together. You would also have more time for browsing and people watching on the main market square while you're on your own.

Yes. I think I will have a list of things we could maybe see, but the more I think about it we may just want to walk around and acclimate ourselves to the area. We will have been gone almost a week already before we meet our tour, we may want a little downtime.