Skiing in the Alps

It still sounds sounds exotic to my ears to say that we went skiing in the Swiss Alps for the week. And it was, in a way, exotic. Although Switzerland and Germany are neighbors, there are enough differences to make it an adventure to cross the border.

To be honest I was more than a little hesitant to go on a ski vacation this year, with kids who are not huge fans of the sport. And although I do love to ski, I would prefer to spend family vacation time some place warm, especially after months and months of snow through the "coldest winter in 30 years" in Bonn. However, Olof made his case, pointing out that we are here for a limited time and what an amazing opportunity we have to go SKIING IN SWITZERLAND! Okay, okay.

There seem to be a gazillion ski areas and resorts within a 6 to 8 hour drive from Bonn, so choosing one was quite a task. After researching "the best family ski areas in Switzerland" we settled on the small alp village of Adelboden, located not too far from the capital Bern. http://www.adelboden.ch/en/page.cfm/Bergbahnen

Finding a place to stay was the next challenge, as it seems that most of Europe has the second and/or third week of February off in order to ski. Really, no joke. This is usually referred to as "sport break" for the kids. This was made very clear to us while we were driving to Adelboden - every other car was Dutch, French or German heading into Switzerland!

We arrived on a cloudy Saturday evening, too late to rent equipment, but in time to wander the cute village. As we wandered, everyone greeted us with a friendly "grüß gott" or 'grüßi" literally meaning "greet god" but generally just hello. We loved the warmth of the greetings and the cozy Swiss accent which was much harder for us to understand, but sounded great.

The deal we made with the kids was that they would try ski school for 2 days and if they loved it, they could continue and if they hated it, we would not push. I was totally impressed by both kids and their brave faces as we booked their ski school and told them they would be on the mountain from 9:30 to 1:45 when we picked them up. Gulp. After making these arrangements on Sunday for the next day, we had the afternoon to explore.

Besides skiing, sledding is big fun in the Alps, so we hopped on the nearest gondola and rented sleds. We opted for the tamer sled run first, which was 3 and a half kilometers of screaming fun for all of us. Well maybe not when the Louise went face first in the snow bank, but otherwise we were all grinning from ear to ear. Of course we had to go again, and again, and again. I have never sledded like this before and used muscles I did not even know I had in order to steer that funky Swiss sled with my rear end.

Of course a week in Switzerland must also include plenty of chocolate and fondue, and we did our best to cover these bases as well.

In the end, Noah loved skiing and opted for another day of ski school. Louise was not so thrilled with the sport, and preferred to go to the swimming pool with me. Olof and I were very satisfied since we both got to ski more than we have since life pre-children, and we got to do it in Switzerland. It was truly beautiful.