Bonjour!

We made it! We're here! We never thought the day to actually get on the plane and fly to Luxembourg would actually come. But, come it did.... After hanging with family in Virginia for six weeks, it was time.

It took two cars to get our five bodies and twenty plus (you think I'm kidding, but I'm not) pieces of luggage to the airport. If you figure one carry on suitcase and one backpack per person for carry on, then one free checked suitcase apiece, plus three car seats, a stroller, and a pack-n-play AND K's golf bag. The lady at the check-in counter was super nice and figured out a way to "justify" all of it except for the golf bag, so we only had to pay for one bag :)

I think that the kids thought that the coolest part was this shuttle train we had to take to our terminal in Dulles.




Out first flight was from Dulles to London. We departed at 10:30 at night, so right after take off we got everyone into jammies and they crashed pretty quickly. The kids slept pretty well on the plane, but it was a pretty short night for them since London is five hours ahead of D.C.




We had a five hour layover in London, which we thought would be ridiculously long, but turned out to be pretty nice and not too bad. After being on the plane overnight, we all needed some time to get "refreshed" (if you know what I mean.....clean clothes, brush hair and teeth, wash face, feel human!) Then we found this kids play place. Seriously, how cool is this? I've never seen one of these in an airport before. Miss A spent a lot of time here.




And had to wear this cool green stylish vest to be allowed in.




We waited for our flight to pop up on the screen. Seeing our flight suddenly made it feel so real to me! I knew that once we got on that plane there was definitely no turning back! The flight back to Chicago just a few lines above suddenly looked pretty tempting too. The nerves were setting in....




We were really impressed with how well the kids did being in charge of their own luggage and walking so much in the airports.



Don't judge Miss A on the socks and crocs ;). She's only wearing the socks cause they were required in the play area.

That's our "little airbus" to Lux as the ticket agent put it.




Our flight in Lux landed at about 6:30 local time. We got all our suitcases, cleared customs, and then tried to figure out how to get to our hotel with all that stuff! We had a rental car waiting, so K took the kids in the rental car while I rode with the Portuguese and French speaking taxi driver and all the luggage. He told the taxi driver the name of our hotel, because, conveniently he speaks Portuguese thanks to his mission. We parted ways, and I felt slightly nervous leaving my husband and kids to drive off into a strange country with a strange man I couldn't even talk to. I didn't have my cell phone either because we cancelled my plan before leaving the U.S. I'll get a new one here. Anyways the problem was that K got confused with the name of the hotel, and so my stranger taxi driver took me to a hotel that had no record of us coming. After unloading those 20 bags into the lobby, we figured out it was the wrong hotel. He oh-so-kindly reloaded it all back into his car, and the oh-so-nice receptionist let me make an international phone call to call my husband and find out where I was really supposed to be. She also helped me out by speaking french to the taxi driver to tell him where I needed to go instead. He took me there, unloaded the stuff again, K showed up with the kids, and I breathed a big sigh of relief.

Night #1 was pretty rough with jet lag issues, but everyone fell asleep eventually and we all survived.












Let the adventure begin!!!!!

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Location:Luxembourg, Luxembourg