Holy Cheese! I'm in Switzerland!: family trip to switzerland

The long-awaited visit of my parents, sister, brother-in-law, niece, and nephew has come and gone. It was so much fun to have my family here. The only thing that would have made it better would have been to have Jared and Jenae here too to make it really the whole family. We were very busy while they were here (as you can tell by my previous posts on Germany and Austria and all that is to come). Here are the highlights from the time my family spent in Switzerland.

I received this picture of the kids (and dad) the morning that they arrived. They were all ready to come to Switzerland!

And they arrived with ALL of their luggage! After a small mishap at the airport where I managed to lose the Schaefer family (within 20 minutes of their arrival in Switzerland), we made it back to my apartment. For awhile in the parking garage at the airport, we really did not know how all of this luggage, 4 adults, 2 kids with car seats, and 2 strollers were going to fit into the two small cars we rented, but we managed.

After short naps and showers, we headed into the city of Zurich to walk around a bit and took a boat ride on the lake. The boat ride was so relaxing that mom, dad & Kaylynn all fell asleep.

On our first day back from our Germany/Austria/Liechtenstein trip, we took it easy and stayed in Zurich. We took the train to the top of Uetliberg. Some of us even were brave enough to climb the tower overlooking the city (Kaylnn included, Lainey not).

Then we took the kids to one of the swimming areas at the lake and they got to go down the big green slide. I think this was one of her favorite things about all of her trip!

The next morning, everyone went to the playground while I went to the doctor.

Then we drove to Broc and did the Cailler chocolate factory tour. Eli was very happy with the free samples. He was not so happy when his mommy stopped giving him chocolate.

We stopped in Gruyere, but missed the last cheese-making demonstration of the day.

Then we stopped on the way back to Zurich for dinner in Bern. Lainey and Josh took the kids in the strollers on top of the "fountain" and unfortunately for those of us watching, it didn't go off while they were on it.

The next day we went to Lucerne. We toured the Hergiswil glass factory.

Kaylynn was really excited that she made this fountain on the lake go using the control panel.

Lainey, Eli, Kaylynn & Josh in Lucerne

And here is a picture of one of the many dinners that we had on the rooftop at my apartment. They lucked out with great weather on the whole trip. On the roof is where Eli discovered his favorite thing about Switzerland - paprika flavored potato chips!

Here is a picture of our trusty drivers for the whole trip. They did a great job in these little cars. Dad only forgot he was driving a stick once and that was on the first day in the middle of a roundabout blocking 2 lanes of traffic. He recovered quickly though.

For their last full day in Switzerland, I took them to the Lauterbrunnen valley. We took the gondola up to Mürren and had lunch and walked around a bit.