Art for Mother’s Day...

Sunday was Mother’s Day and we spent the afternoon at MUDAM, the contemporary art museum.

Designed by world-renowned architect I.M. Pei, the museum opened in 2006 and is quite a work of art itself.

If you look closely, these stained glass panels feature human x-rays.

This fountain, filled with what appeared to be oil, was part of a special exhibit about climate change. Funny enough, our family became part of a living art installation when we all fell asleep in a darkened room full of overstuffed chairs while short movies played of people sleeping. 

I love this photo that Veronica took of Ashlynn in the café.

She wasn’t as thrilled about posing for me, but humored me since it was Mother’s Day. Afterwards, we dropped Veronica off at the airport and set off for home.

Luxembourg Night Marathon & Half-Marathon...

Our gang met up with Lisa and Lee, who were both running their first marathon, to head to the start of the race.

Veronica had been having some knee pain, so had it wrapped up.

It was weird for me to not be at the start of the race, so I was glad that they sent me some photos.

They were all smiles before their races started.

There were lots of spectators.

There were also lots of giveaways, such as my lovely orange hat and tambourine. I staked out a good spot to watch the race in the park and spotted Ashlynn, but missed taking a photo and didn’t see Veronica at all.

Amazingly, Ashlynn spotted me and I managed to grab a shot of her when I went to my second location, but sadly missed Veronica again and became concerned that she might have dropped out due to pain.

I had to wait several hours, but finally spotted Jimmy. 

I was thrilled to learn that both girls finished their first half. Ashlynn ran a speedy 1:48:57 and came in 3rd girl under 19. Veronica fought through her knee pain and did a fantastic 2:25:44. This is especially impressive when you consider that it was a hilly course and they both did only limited training in flat cities.

Jimmy was very pleased to break four hours with a 3:58:49. The following morning we met up with Lisa and Lee for a shot with their medals before they headed back to Holland.

Around Luxembourg City...

 There were lots of spots to take photos.

 Here’s some of my favorites taken by Veronica...

...by Jimmy...

...and by me.

We even managed to get a nice family selfie at one of the two vegan restaurants we ate at.

This store sign made me laugh.

We popped into the Museum of History and Art to see this incredible Roman mosaic from around 240 AD. 

Bridges in Luxembourg...

Since the races didn’t start until the evening, we had much of the day to explore the city. We started with walking back to the big elevator to see the view in the daylight. Along the way to the viewpoint, we took some photos inside.

If you look carefully, you can see the Kneipp pools just to the left of the tree in front of the church.

As we continued our walk, we could see the bridge behind the elevator that would be on the last leg of the races.

Further along, we got Ashlynn to pose. Behind her is the bridge that has a pedestrian walkway under the roadway...

...with lovely viewpoints along the way. 

A Weekend in Luxembourg...

Jimmy hadn’t run a marathon since 2005, but couldn’t resist Lisa’s invitation to join her in Luxembourg for a night marathon. It was also the perfect opportunity for a short family holiday and a chance for the girls to run their first half marathon. Jimmy, Ashlynn and I borrowed a friend’s car and arrived first, so we picked up everyone’s run numbers. 

Unlike other races, the end was going to be inside the conference center and was limited to participants.

Veronica flew in from London after work and we picked her up at the airport. As always, the girls were happy to be reunited.

We took a walk around that evening and discovered that a big elevator had been installed since our last visit in 2006 to connect the upper and lower parts of the city.

Jimmy and Ashlynn couldn’t resist taking off their shoes and rolling up their trousers when we came across a Kneipp cold water pool. Named after a German priest from the 19th century, this form of hydrotherapy supposedly has curative powers.

Veronica and I weren’t wearing the right clothes, so we stood dry and warm on the sidelines.

Ironically, the fellow that joined them was instrumental in helping to raise funds to renovate the pools that were originally built over a natural spring in 1931 as part of the public wash-house.

First Family Portrait...

When we first got a glimpse of this calf, we knew that he was fairly young. As we got closer, we realized that we were watching him take his first steps. He was still wet from his big journey. We were so distracted by watching the labor nurse eating the afterbirth, that we missed our turn on our hike in the Ardennes (we spent the final night of our holiday in the northern mountains of Luxembourg). Luckily we had a topo map and were able to find our way back.

A Roman Ruins Daytrip...

It was just an hour by train to Trier, Germany which had several interesting Roman ruins to see. While we'd seen Roman baths and amphitheatres in Italy, this was our first chance to explore the tunnels below. Also thought it was interesting that there were vomitoriums at the amphitheatre. I thought it meant that there were troughs placed around because people would get sick watching the slaves being fed to lions, but actually it was the type of exits built as passages under the seats since people "spewed out" after the carnage was over.

Valuable Lessons Learned in Luxembourg - Part 2

* If only we had saved all those wine bottles from the Chateau, we too could have zip-tied our own cool piece of art. This particular one filled up an entire room in the new Luxembourg Modern Art Museum. The architecture of the museum was definitely as interesting as the art and often a lot easier to understand. Designed by I.M. Pei, who designed the infamous Louvre Pyramids, it includes an incredible amount of glass and has walkways over 13th century ruins.

* Not all train stations are created equally. We're quite spoiled in Holland because many of the stations have mini-marts and sandwich shops, but in Luxembourg we had several changes of trains in abandoned stations in the middle of nowhere. At least the scenery was pretty.

Valuable Lessons Learned in Luxembourg - Part 1..

* Carry a flashlight in your travel backpack so when your husband decides to go down dark windy paths through the canyon shown, you can really be brave instead of just pretending to be. (We're standing in the Bock Casemates, a series of defense tunnels built in 963 that housed thousands of soldiers under a castle until it was demolished in 1867. The 17K of remaining tunnels were used as air raid shelters during the world wars.)

* It would be a lot cheaper if we'd just give in and eat fast food. In our effort to eat real food on holiday, we eat a lot of Italian since we rarely can find any other food that the girls will eat or we can afford. Luckily, several of our Italian meals in Luxembourg were even better than we had in Rome.

Mommy, Why are We Staying in a Hospital?

After we checking into the Luxembourg City Youth Hostel (the red and white building on the left), Ashlynn asked if hospitals all over the world let people rent rooms. Unlike Jimmy, I never experienced hostel life in college. Luckily these days you only have to be young at heart to take advantage of very affordable accomodations (about $50/night for a family room in Europe is truly a steal). In addition to a fantastic location, clean rooms and breakfast, you get to:
* Make and strip your own bed
* Take military-style showers with 30-seconds of water at a time
* Shower in the dark when the timer light turns off
* Fight with your kids over who gets the top bunk
* Moon folks across the way from the WC with no curtains

Luxembourg City -- An Unexpected Jewel...

The train ride to Luxembourg was beautiful as we passed through the mountains awash in the colors of fall. We really didn't know what to expect when we arrived in Luxembourg City, the capital of this small nation of just 500,000 people. We were pleasantly surprised at what a pretty city it was perched on a hill surrounded by 13th century ruins. We enjoyed exploring several museums, especially the Museum of History and Art which has the largest and most spectacular 3rd century Roman mosiac floor we've ever seen. The weather was great, so we spent a lot of time walking along the river shown here.

Country Roads, Take Me Home...

In our 10 years in North Carolina, we never managed to make it to the Blue Ridge Mountains in the fall for the changing of the leaves. During our recent October half term break, we were excited to get to the mountains in time to see the fall colors. Can you guess where we went?

Look for the answer next week when we return from our long weekend away as we tag along for another business trip.