We are back from our ski trip. It was a great trip, other than the departure. After Curt got our roof rack on the car, packed everything up perfectly, we all piled in and tried to start the car and .... nothing! As I mentioned earlier, Terence, Curt's dad and Curt's sister took the train. It worked out perfectly as there was a direct train to Salzburg and from there they took a 1 hour taxi drive to our hotel.
After calling City Taxi and attempting to get our car jump started, we decided to call our move manager to ask for advice. We also called Misi who is responsible for all our company cars and looks after our car too. After some consideration, we decided to change our car with them and instead take our company van. It's an 8 passenger van so we just put down the last row for our skis and all our bags (we had the train people's luggage too so they didn't have to worry about lugging it). It worked out really well. However, it put us about 2 - 2 1/2 hours behind our original plan. No big deal. We made it shortly after the train group and met up for a beer and nice, light dinner of antipasto.
The next day we hit the slopes. We skiied as a family (just the 4 of us) while Ali stayed behind with Curt's sister, Lisa. The hotel also had a kindergarten for kids over 2 years old but we didn't need to use it as Lisa and Ali were very happy together. They hiked the cross country trails every day while Curt, Terence, Mia and I skiied. From Monday, Terence and Mia entered ski school from 9:30am - 3pm (lunch included) and Ali took a few attempts on skis (her request). Curt and I had great fun skiing alone and then enjoying apres ski until T and Mia were finished with ski school.
We'd meet up back at the hotel where we would usually go for a swim, then cards and coffee (or sometimes we'd stick to gluhwein or beer), then from 6:30pm dinner. Dinners at our hotel are fantastic! It's all included (as is breakfast) and we ate well!
Photos are still to be downloaded so in the meantime, here is a photo of the ski area we just returned from:
Pat, Harry and Lisa are still here with us until Wednesday, January 7th. We are having a great time together but taking it easy. Tomorrow the kids return to school, Curt back to work, me back to unpacking (I'll return to work on Thursday) and getting the house in order, my car repaired, our heat fixed (we returned to a very cold house), and everything else back in order. The week between Christmas and New Year's no one seems to work or do anything in this country so from Monday, it's time to get serious.
Photos coming soon... I promise.
