How was your Easter? We had a busy, but relaxing four days and are looking forward to another four-day long weekend next week (Thursday May 1st is ‘May Day’ and Michael also took Friday off)!

It kicked off on Thursday evening, as we drove to the countryside to stay over at a friend’s house and then have a fish lunch the next day. Good Friday, or as it is called in Germany, Karfreitag, is a day that is respected in many ways that involve a whole bunch of rules. Of course, we’re in Germany!

Many (mostly the Catholics), fast during this time or are not supposed to eat meat. As for the rest of us, we are not to dance because there it is a day of stillness. Many sports are also not to be played on this day, as well as some theatre pieces. It sounds crazy, and there is a lot to debate, I’m sure, but I find this simply interesting. Clubs are still open despite these rules, so I wonder how they control this.

Anyway, we drove back home on Friday (which also happened to be Justin’s birthday…HAPPY BIRTHDAY AGAIN BRO!) and had a relatively lazy, though productive day putting some more furniture together.

Saturday was the day that we bought our new old car and bought groceries for the rest of the weekend. In Germany, stores are not open on Sundays so there were A LOT of people in all of the supermarkets, stocking up.

After church on Sunday, we met up with Michael’s godmother and her friend’s golden retriever and walked about in the forest near our home. The dog had a whole lot of fun and we enjoyed watching her play around with other dogs that she met. It’s amazing how much excitement a small creek can bring to a dog! That and sticks! In honour of Justin we made ourselves some dumplings at home.

Then on Monday we had a sleep in and then decided spontaneously to have a little outing somewhere. We thought about going to the Fairytale Garden in Ludwigsburg, but as we have both been there before and figured that it would be way too overcrowded on a day when the weather was nice and everyone had the time, we decided to go someplace semi-new to us.

I have written about my amazing birthday at Tripsdrill last year, where we also had the option of going to the Wild Paradise/Park that is right next to the theme park. Back then we were exhausted from riding roller coasters and going on rides that we didn’t end up going to see the animals. This time we went there on a mission to see all of the animals at the park. The ticket was cheaper because it did not include entry to the theme park, but that was fine with us! It was about 9.50€ per person and we stuck around to see the feeding of the european wolves, brown bears and lynxes, skipping the wild cats to get a better spot in front of the lynxes. There is also a bird show but we didn’t watch that either. Jade is the only bird for us!

It was a lovely day and the park was not overcrowded. We got to see all of the animals and towards the end, the clouds started rolling out and we knew that it was time to go home. Definitely worth a visit if you’re in the area! There are also free roaming mouflons (part of the sheep family), goats and deer, and you are allowed to feed many of the animals with food that you can buy at the park. Great for kids.

The price of food as well as the size of the portions were also decent, making it a really great place to visit with the whole family.

What’s also cool is that you can stay over in either a refurbished ‘Shepherd’s Carriage’ or, for bigger groups, an amazing treehouse.

I hope you guys had a lovely Easter as well and in Australia, another long weekend this weekend!