On the 1st day of Christmas...

...my sisters finally came!!! I cannot go into it--mostly because I'm sick of the story and hate thinking about the extreme disappointment, but after many delays, Julie and Emily arrived! I was waiting at this gate for about 25 minutes. I was so excited I couldn't stand still. I bit my lip to keep from crying. When my emotions are really heightened I cry. No matter the emotion. I just couldn't stand waiting any longer. I started pacing.
Reason for the delay: check out the picture from outside my window. There was 3 times that much snow on the East Coast. The US and Europe snow storms combined to make them a day late in arriving. But they finally made it! Unfortunately, their luggage still hasn't found its way here.
Our first stop was the Frankfurt LDS temple. It was hiding. We couldn't see it until we were about 1/4 mile away. But it is really beautiful and peaceful.
After the temple, we made the 2+ hour drive to Trier. We finally found parking 1/2 a mile away and walked to the Altstadt. We came upon the Porta Nigra (gate to the old city) and the Constantine Basilica from the outside, but went inside the beautiful Cathedral of Trier. In all my travels, I still think this is the most beautiful, ornate church I've been in. Last time I went here it was full of tourists. This time it was quite empty and silent. It was also dark and had minimal lighting. It had a different feel. I liked it better.
We enjoyed the Christmas market. You can never enjoy a Christmas market too much. It was so much fun to be with my sisters looking at all the cool things. I was sad Jer had to work and couldn't be with us too. I've missed my sisters so much I just loved being with them.
We got fruit covered in chocolate. There were so many different kinds of fruit, and then each was dipped in our choice of white, milk or dark chocolate. Julie had mandarin oranges in dark chocolate. Emily had a banana in milk chocolate. I had the strawberries (which were sweet, yummy berries!) in milk chocolate. When I say "dipped" I do not mean there was a tiny layer of crispy chocolate that flakes off at the first bite. No, the chocolate was sufficiently thick and oh, so delicious! I think we must be healthy and eat this kind of fruit every day!
We left after dark and as soon as we got to the car, it started to rain. It didn't sprinkle at all until we opened the car doors. We were so lucky!
We headed to Matt and Christina's house to pick up Christina. It is conveniently on the way back from Trier. Matt and Jer went to pick up Casey (Matt's troop) and meet us at the yummy German restaurant.
Everyone in my family has chosen German for the foreign language in school. Besides me and my parents, nobody else has had the opportunity to come to Germany to use it. It was fun to see Emily get flustered trying to remember German words. After Christina ordered, Emily ordered by saying, "Same." It was really funny! Julie took German in college too, so has had more experience with the language. She was excited to speak German and ordered in German. She did learn some new words and learned about how the local dialect is different from what she learned in school.
It is so fun to see Julie and Emily enjoy the German culture and cuisine!
By the end of the night, we were all exhausted. I slept really hard last night and woke up almost 2 1/2 hours ago. Julie and Emily are still sleeping and it's 9am. :)