As our vacation is coming nearer and nearer we needed to arrange some more things for our vacation. The first and maybe the most important thing to do was arranging a mobile internet connection, the experience with the sim-card from KeepGo in New York City was great and the price was right so we decided to go for them again. Be aware that you get the best prices only when you login from the Netherlands or Belgium. In Germany prices quoted are about double as high. Readers might wonder why we want to be online during our trip but, it’s all about the vouchers, coupons and social media actions.

The next important thing would be the rental car. We were already looking for some weeks to find a good offer and every time we came to the conclusion that USA-Reisen had the best deal for us. We needed a car at Miami Airport and we’d liked to return it at Orlando International Airport, the size should be ‘American’. So we went for a full-size SUV from Alamo. After having a Chevrolet Tahoe during our trip to New York in 2012 and having the Ford Explorer in California last year we are already curious about which car we would get this time…

Now it seems like everything we need is booked…although we still need the theme-park tickets. Where do we’d like to go when we are in the Greater Orlando area? Yes we go to Walt Disney World. But what ticket do we need to buy? First we needed to determine how many days we would like to visit the Walt Disney parks, or we would access the water parks and or we’d like to change parks during the day.

• At least 15 days in the park during 18 days in Greater Orlando
• We’d like to hop between parks
• If the weather is right we’d like to visit the water-parks

So with this facts there were only 2 kind of tickets. One would be the 21-day Ultimate tickets which is only available for residents from the Untied Kingdom, Ireland and Europe the other one would be the Premium Annual pass. Both give you full access to Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Disney’s Hollywood Studio’s, Animal Kingdom, Typhoon Lagoon, Blizzard Beach and DisneyQuest. The difference between both is that the Premium Annual Pass has free parking included, parking costs 15$/day. And the price difference between both tickets is about the same as the parking costs for 16 days. In addition you get also some discounts in selected stores and restaurants and special events with the Premium Annual Pass. So we decided to order one 21-day ultimate ticket and one Premium Annual Pass so we can go to the parks every day without having to think about the costs for parking. In 2010 there were days we only went to the parks for a couple of hours in the evening to watch the nighttime entertainment or enjoy the Food & Wine festival in Epcot.

And if that’s not enough we also ordered special event tickets, this time we’ll go Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party, we can’t wait to have hot chocolate and christmas cookies at about 25°C while listening christmas music!

Other things we might like to do is visit Legoland Florida since we both have never been to a Legoland theme-park. And maybe we’d like to visit SeaWorld since a new ride has opened there with some technology I know pretty well…but I’m not sure or only that is enough to visit SeaWorld again.

Today (1st August 2013) five years ago we came to Germany and I’d like to take you back to some of the things which happened since the moment we left the Netherlands. Let’s us start with leaving the Netherlands, up to the moment that we were really leaving we didn’t really thought about the impact our move had on our family but suddenly it was there…

The first weeks we had marvellous weather and we started learning German. At the beginning I actually spoke German a little bit better as Danielle did, but within 2 weeks she got better and nowadays she speaks German without an accent. When Sander speaks people directly know he’s not a native speaker.

In the first weeks Danielle spend also a lot of time online with searching for our own place to live in. And she found the apartment where we still live in today. It’s in a small town southeast from Nürnberg near to Sanders work. We are still very happy here and we both enjoy the quietness here.

After finding our house we needed also a car and so we got ourselves a Opel Astra GTC. And off course winter tires since they are necessary here as you can see in the following picture.

In October 2008 got the first visitors from the Netherlands, the parents from Sander, unfortunately we don’t have any pictures from that weekend. In December 2008 Danielle her parents came to visit us and they got to enjoy a little bit of snow and some glühwein from the  famous Nürnberger Christkindlesmarkt, the local christmas market.

And soon it was time to celebrate the new year, we were invited by Jörg a colleague and we asked where to buy fireworks. His answer was in the supermarket and we thought he was joking about it but, soon we learned that he was speaking the truth the fireworks lays besides the vegetables and the meat in all the supermarkets in town. This is something which still feels awkward after 5 years.

Soon after we got our satellite dish to make it possible to watch Dutch television since the German television was boring and it wasn’t relaxing at all to watch everything in German. Daniel, a colleague of Sander helped us installing.

And then Danielle found her first job in Germany at Firstdata. She started working in a call centre where the language she needed was German most of time and she did a good job there since she still works there.

And then Sander tried an original Weißwurst Frühstuck (White sausage breakfast) which means you can start the day with a beer. He only prepared this himself twice but he still eats them in the office sometimes.

At easter Danielle her sister and boyfriend came over for their first visit. And we were lucky since it was marvellous weather and we could enjoy our balcony and visit a beergarten.

And to make 2009 even better we finally sold our house in the Netherlands, we lost a big amount of money but we were glad the house was sold. In june we would have the key exchange with the new owners and on our way to the Netherlands we planned a visit to Europa-Park to meet Yves en Joke again. And as a surprise they invite more of our friends to join us for the visit and that was a big surprise!

And in September we went with some of them to a vacation park in Belgium. That was a fun time with Belgium beer, German beer, a nice barbecue. And the day after we started cleaning up the mess with a vacuum cleaner. Did you knew they work outside too?

After a vacation in Florida it was soon time to start 2010. In 2010 we had an easy start with work and not a lot happened up to March, here we got the news that Sanders dad was very ill. In april Sanders family came over which was the first visit of his Sister and as we know now it was the last visit of Sanders dad. We spend some days together and went also the volksfest where we enjoyed a half meter long sausage. And we had a great time at a local greek restaurant.

In June Danielle her parents came over for a couple of days around Danielle her 26th birthday. We visit the ‘Kloster Weltenburg’ which is a convent which brews beer.

And then the world championship football started, we both cheated for the Dutch and we hoped that we would come further in the championships as the Germans. And so we did and we thought it was appropriate to show of our nationality at that time.

In september Danielle her parents would have their annual vacation relatively close to our place so we went over for a night to join them. We have seen some hills and we enjoyed walking on the ‘Waldhupfelweg’ and some delicious pie.

That were most of the highlights in Germany for 2010 so we went on with 2011. The first highlight was our trip to Berlin, the capital of Germany. It was our first visit there but we knew for sure we would come back and so we did already 2 times in 2012.

And we also bought a new car in that year. It was a brand new Opel Insignia which we still enjoy. Finally a station car again which has perfect seats which makes it a lot more comfortable to drive to the Netherlands.

Together with Yves en Joke we went to Disneyland Paris for Halloween with our new car. It was an exciting trip with lots of fun but it was also the last time we went to Disneyland Paris up till now… That wasn’t because of the company by the way!

And soon it was 2012. In 2012 a lot of things happened. We went to a wine-tasting in Oberhofen together with a lot of colleagues from Sander from both Nürnberg and Karlsruhe and this is something we should do again!

At the end of July Sanders sister and boyfriend came over to our place. One of the things we did was making their wedding pictures in this area.

In August Danielle her parents came to our place on the way to their annual vacation. As a birthday surprise for Danielle her mother we got them a suite as hotel room at the hotel were our family stays most of the times when they visit us.

And then it was time for the wedding of Sanders sister. We enjoyed the wedding cake and especially the tea-time. It was worth the ride over to the Netherlands and it was really special that Sanders dad was there.

After celebrating christmas for the last time with the whole family from Sanders side, his dad past away in February 2013 after fighting to get better for almost 3 years. We were both happy to share the first 4,5 year of our adventures with him but we are sad at the same time for missing him.

In May we went back to the Netherlands for the wedding of Danielle her sister. It was nice weather the wedding was beautiful and the party in the evening was great.

But a couple of months after Sanders sister gave birth to a little boy called Jop-Jannes. Our little nephew and we got to be his godfather en godmother. Sander has seen Jop twice in real-life and we have had already had to FaceTime calls with him but we can’t wait to she him again soon.

As a surprise for my 31st birthday Danielle invited my mother to Germany and together with Ronald she came to Germany. It was nice to have my mother visiting us again after a long period.

Some of you may have noticed that we started running in 2013 and Danielle even trained for running at the B2Run event in Nürnberg last week. She ran the 6k in less then 45 minutes.

Two days later we got another visit from Danielle her sister and husband. The weather was great and we went to Nürnberg city to get some food, drinks and sunshine.

And 4 days ago we celebrated our wooden anniversary. We had a relaxed day in the swimming pool and had a diner in a local restaurant in the evening.

We are still enjoying our time here in Germany and are glad we took the chance we got back in 2008. We’ve made new friends, still meet some of our friends from back home and live in a really nice town in Germany.