A Luxembourg Christmas
This year, we did something very different for Christmas. I found a cheap car rental, and a hotel in Luxembourg over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Though the distance limit on the car rental is exactly that of twice the distance to Luxembourg, I was confident that I could stick to the route and not go over the limit. Since public transportation is free in Luxembourg, we planned to take advantage of that, leaving the car at the hotel.
The drive from our house to Luxembourg was long. I picked up the car, a brand new, never-before driven Renault Clio, as soon as the rental service opened, and we left the house as soon as we loaded some clothing, food, and our Christmas presents into the small trunk. As we headed East, attempting to circumvent Paris and any holiday traffic, we followed smaller roads. Soon on a national highway, we indeed ran into some traffic. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, and we did eventually get going, albeit after having made an important mistake that ended up increasing the distance to Luxembourg. We passed through nice countryside, and some interesting villages in Northeastern France. I would describe them as a bit run-down, though still functional. The region seemed to have seen better days, likely when manufacturing or resource extraction used to take place in that area.
When we finally made it to the hotel, the car had 499 kilometers on the odometer, 1 short of the halfway point. We would have to do better on the way home. In the meantime, we relaxed after the long 6 or 7 hour drive. The next day, we got going and started the day off by walking around Grund, a historical neighborhood. It was beautiful. Big stoneworks everywhere, with even the townhouses on old stone foundations. The old-time feel had been well-preserved, much better than we see in Paris. Afterwards we visited the luxurious city center, which is actually quite small. From there, we made it in a very roundabout way out to the village of Mamer. Out there, we enjoyed free ice skating, though Daniel took a lot of convincing. There was also an artificial sledding hill. We stopped by the playground after a having a great time there. Back on the bus, Daniel of course fell asleep, but we made our way back to the hotel and crashed for the evening.
We let the children open one present each. The kids both got some great presents this year. Lots of good clothing, which is much-needed, as well as some fun toys for both. Daniel got a bunch of toy cars, and Miriam got Jenga, which she is quite good at. On Christmas Day, we opened more presents, then headed out for more fun in the city. Most things were closed, but the city has a fun little playground with a big wooden pirate ship, that was the main focus of the day. We also visited the Pfaffenthal elevator, which is quite scenic, if a bit of a trigger for my fear of falling from high up. We visited a playground or two, saw the inner city again, including the beautiful Cathedral Notre-Dame, then returned to the hotel room to rest for the rest of our Christmas evening.
On our final day, we visited some rides at one of the Christmas markets. Daniel did the trampoline, and we all did the Ferris Wheel. Again, it was far too high up. Thankfully we survived that, and soon got back on the road home. We took a more direct route this time, though it was still quite a long drive as we took the backroads through villages and countryside. It was beautiful, but Miriam was sick, and had to make use of a bucket that we placed with her in the backseat. We did thankfully make it home by the evening, having thoroughly enjoyed our little Christmas vacation. It was fun to do something as a little family unit, and the short length of the vacation was perfect for Luxembourg, where we felt we had seen a lot of what we wanted to see, and were ready to be back home.