Ski School

View from the top at Jungholz, in Austria

Last winter the kids were extremely excited at the beginning of winter, and extremely disappointed when we hardly got any snow.  Needless to say, my husband and I were elated that we didn't have to do much shoveling.  Well, this year, we seem to be having a 'typical' winter here in Bavaria, with lots of snow, shoveling, snowman building, snow forts, etc, etc.

First lesson at Riedberger Horn, in Germany

In an effort to make the best of snow, we are hitting the slopes!  The city that we came from in North Carolina was more than six hours from the closest mountain, and anything resembling a ski slope, but here we can get to a ski slope in about an hour.    Last year we tried a couple of times to take the kids skiing, but I can't say that it was very successful.

Enjoying a beer while we waited for the kids
to finish  their lesson

Ski clubs are very popular around here, and a colleague of my husband is a member of a club that offers ski lesson for kids at the beginning of each ski season.  We signed the kids up for the series of three lessons, which ran on Saturdays in January.

Meredith and her instructor using the T-lift

The kids (and us) were really nervous about the experience.  Of course, the instructors and other children would be speaking German, and the kids didn't think that sounded like much fun.  In my over-worrisome mind, I would be dropping my kids of with German-speaking strangers,  who would be hurdling my sweet darlings down the mountain and probably breaking their legs in the process.

Lucky for us, this of course, is not what happened!!  The instructors translated to English when needed, and my son realized that after 18 months of daily lessons in German, he could understand a lot of the instructions anyway.

After the first day, Ryan gave enthusiastic thumbs up, and Meredith gave an exhausted smile.  By the end of the last lesson, three weeks later, the kids were all smiles as the swished down the easy slopes and hopped right back on the chair lift.

Me!

The best part for my husband and I, of course, was a chance to ski by ourselves for the first time in six years.  We both grew up in northern states and had skied growing up, but I must admit that my skills are really rusty and I whined worse than the kids about sore leg muscles!

It was fantastic to actually see the sun!

We plan to do a bunch more day trips before the season is out.  The snow has been great, and way better than anywhere I have been on the east coast of the USA.  As with all of our family adventures, the times when we are the most nervous to try something new is when we have the most fun.