Spring Break 2011

This spring, Mike's parents were able to come visit with us for a few weeks.  We took the opportunity to do a bit of traveling.  We rented some cars, turned on the GPS and headed out of Paris.  We spent 5 days on the road visiting the Loire Valley, Mont St. Michel, and the D-Day Sites in Normandy.  

Be warned:  We took lots of pictures.  I tried to only put up some of the good ones, but I still uploaded way too many.  Enjoy!

First Stop: Chateau de Chenonceau

I loved the tiled floors in this room.  The colors were only visible in the corners since so many people have walked through.  But you can just imagine how beautiful the room would have been when the floor was covered in this blue tile.

The girl's called this the Rapunzel Tower.

Rachael was imagining that she was princess of this castle.

 Second Stop: Chateau du Clos-Luce, Leondardo da Vinci's home and park.

This kids loved this one.  They had recreations of some of Da Vinci's inventions in the basement of the house. And outside there were some life size contraptions that the kids could climb on and play with to see how they worked.  

Third Stop: Mont St. Michel

This abbey on an island was simple magnificent.

This made me think on you Madie :)

The hotel we were staying at gave each kid a small toy when we checked in.  Rebecca go this elephant.  One morning as we were leaving we noticed she had placed this sign in front of it.  It says " Sit-tu-plait, ne pas touche le elephant."  Please, do not touch the elephant.

Our hotel in Caen was very family friendly.  We woke up on Easter morning to learn that an Easter egg hunt had been set up for all the children staying at the hotel.  The kids loved running around gathering eggs before we headed out on that days adventure.

Chris gathered his number of eggs to quickly for me too get a picture.  There was a video game console in the hotel lobby that was much more exciting then egg gathering.

Fourth Stop: D-Day Sights

We started at the Pointe du Hoc Ranger Monument.  They've left the landscape just as it was then with bombed out bunkers and large craters in the ground.  It was really neat to explore the area and peer over the ledge that the forces had to scale up.

The Ranger Dagger Monument

It's hard to imagine trying to climb up this cliff using ladders extending from the boats.

Next we went to the American Cemetery in Normandy

Since we were visiting this site on Easter Sunday, Mike took
the opportunity to talk with the kids about sacrifice.  The
sacrifices made by these soldiers, and the sacrifice of Jesus
Christ.  It was an amazing way to spend the day.

Next it was on to Omaha Beach

On our drive back to Cann, we stopped through the town of Bayeux.  We didn't have time to stop into any sites, but we were able to snap a few pictures of the cathedral.

She had to find some way to entertain herself in a car all day long!

Our final stop was the Caen Memorial Museum

I could have spent the whole day here looking through all the displays, but we were out of time and had to head back to Paris.  It's an amazing museum.

So tired from all the travel.

Once back in Paris, the kids returned to school, but we were still able to do some local sightseeing while the Binghams were still in town.

Sacre-Coeur

Inside the Arc de Triomphe

View from the top

If you look down the road on the left, you'll see it ends in a green park.  Right at the entrance to the park is the kid's school and our apartment is somewhere beyond that.

EuroDisney

Tea Cups

Rapunzel had already left for the day, but the kids still wanted pictures.