Our family trip to Austria

For the boys short break in October, we decided to drive down to Austria to check things out. It was approxiamtely 5 hours of driving, but a beautiful drive it was. We took Lolli with us. Her first journey with us to a hotel. I'm still amazed that hotels take pets. We arrived at our quaint little hotel in Salzburg, just in time for dinner. We didn't even unpack, but went straight to the restaurant and all stood there, starring. Do we or don't we go in with Lolli? It was a descent Asian restaurant that had many patrons. We finally decided that we were hungry enough to go in and take Lolli with us. To our surprise, someone else had their Golden Retriever with them. This made us feel better. We sat down to negotiate for dinner. I say "negotiate" because we only speak English at this point. Our waiter speaks Mandrin, Deutsch, & a little English. Amazing! We order. Lolli is comfortably situated under the table. We enjoy our meal and dessert. I tell Jody that I'll go check us in and get the boys situated for the evening if he'll pay the bill. He calls me back and says to take Lolli too. I say that I will. Jody looks under the table...the perpetual joker that he is and says, "Where's Lolli?" I ask him if he is joking, but then realize that he is not! Where IS Lolli? She has been busy visiting the other tables around us. No one has mentioned anything, but we are quite embarrassed. We have learned a good lesson...."always attach your dog to something that isn't going anywhere...like a table leg or YOUR leg." Anyway, we got to visit many things while in Salzburg. We went to the Eisreisenwelt...the world's largest (discovered...Jody might add) ice cave. It was so cool. (Pardon the pun.) We wern't allowed to take pictures inside. We walked through it with little flaming laterns. Lolli was quite nervous, Tab's feet were cold, and Zane thought it was neato that the guy that discovered it was buried there. We also visited a really neat medival castle. It was beautiful and amazing. The boys, all 3, thought the torture chamber was terrific. We traveled into the heart of Salzburg the next day. We got to see where Mozart was born and the house that he lived in later in life. We ate dinner at the Mozart Cafe and strolled along the shopping district. Tab wandered off at one point and scarred us half to death. Jody hollered and the world stood still, but he found his baby boy. Another good lesson learned...quit daydreaming and stay close to mom and dad. On our way out of town we stopped by Hitler's vacation get-a-way. His officers had it built for him as a birthday gift for his 50th birthday. He didn't visit it very much because he was afraid of heights. It's in a beautiful area. It is surrounded by a 360 degree view of the Austrian and German Alps. Amazing. After the war, the Chancellor asked that it not be torn down. Most all of the other buildings were, but this remains for the public's viewing. A fun trip all in all.