Travel to Amsterdam

July 12th - We got up this morning and said good-bye to Gabe, Lisa and all the kiddos. Anne-Marie drove us to the Leonberg train station for our 9:15 am train. We had a short 20 minute ride on the S-Bahhn (above ground subway) into Stuttgart with only 9 minutes to get from the subway stop to the train platform. We made it with a couple of minutes to spare and were able to get another compartment to ourselves. We only had about an hour on this train before we arrived in Frankfurt for a train change. After getting off the train in Frankfurt, we found our platform for the next train. Mike and Abby went to get us some food while Austin and I stayed back to play with cars and trucks. We had about 30 minutes in Frankfurt before our next train left. Our train to Amsterdam left about 11:45, and we were lucky enough again to have a compartment to ourselves. We love Germany trains! We ate our lunch, watched movies, and took naps. We arrived in Amsterdam around 3:30 and took a taxi to the apartment. We were greeted by Shanda and the girls at the apartment. Their plane had arrived earlier this morning from Seattle. The Jaye's are our friends from Texas that now live in Seattle. They are spending part of their summer vacation with us. Once the Jaye's arrived in Amsterdam, Brent continued on for a business trip to India. He will be back on Friday and then we will all travel to Paris for a week. The house we are staying in is the private residence of a couple that rents out their house during their summer holiday. They have 3 small children, so the house is perfect for the kids, with toys and children's rooms. It even has a rooftop terrace with a playhouse and slide. We are enjoying our "house" accommodations. It is a nice break in the middle of our travels. We all got settled in and enjoyed the rest of the day visiting and catching up.