Neuschwanstein Castle and Iron Kids Switzerland

The castle of all castles, Neuschwanstein. This is my third visit here and they've made a lot of changes. You can buy tickets in advance thus no waiting in long lines. As with most attractions in Europe, kids are free. Beware there are a lot of stairs in the tour and to get to the castle is a very steep walk. The carriage ride (9 euro round trip) does NOT take you all the way to the top but instead drops you off at the steepest part. (My inlaws thought we were trying to send them to an early demise with the steep climb and the winding four floor hike inside the castle.)

This bridge is a nice little hike from the castle and is the best place to get dramatic photographs the castle...
we were too tired, so all you get are these boring photos ;) 

This is the view from the windows on the fourth floor...absolutely breathtaking...

Then we headed to Switzerland (also known as land of the gazillion tunnels) for the Rapperswil-Jona Switzerland Ironman. The swim part of the boys race was cancelled due to freezing cold weather and buckets of rain. Even our campground reservation got cancelled due to snow (which was a bummer since it was on an amazingly beautiful lake, but the boys had fun watching the jets take off from the Zurich airport at the Holiday Inn Express instead).

This is what we do for homeschool physical education. Joshua finished second in his age group and gender.

The regular ironman swim was also cancelled and Anthony got about half way done with the run and the race had to be stopped because of a mudslide. The first ironman cancellation ever. So we spent a fun day in Zurich instead...

And it's been too long since I shared a picture of this little cutie ;)