No moss grew under our feet on Saturday, June 20, the day after Sascha’s wonderful high school graduation event. Saturday morning, we drove with Sascha to "The Little Camp" Buchenwald Concentration Camp, near Weimar, Germany, that housed prisoners from the Soviet Union, Poland, Holland, France, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary, during World War II.

It was a respectful, quiet tour of the Buchenwald Monument where we saw the foundations of the barracks and a crematory. The camp was liberated on April 11, 1945, by American troops, and since 1975, the camp has undergone many improvements to preserve and honor the memory of the dead.

Sascha told us that the people of Weimar had no idea at first what was going on at the camp, since it was located on the back side of a hill. Sascha explained that when many Germans finally learned what was happening, they could not speak out or they too would meet their deaths, plus it was too unbelievable for them. American soldiers had to bring the German citizens into the camp after liberation to prove to them what atrocities occurred there.

Buchenwald was the "parent camp" and in the Buchenwald camp system there was a total of 136 subcamps. Some 56,000 human beings met their deaths in Buchenwald and the subcamps. At its peak, the camp held more than 34,000 prisoners.

All told, there were only about 200,000 Jewish survivors by liberation and the death counts from the holocaust were estimated to be around 6 million Jews and 5 million non-Jewish victims who did not fit the Aryan mold. There were thousands of different kinds of camps- ghettos, concentration camps, forced labor camps, and extermination camps in Germany and Poland.

Sascha talked about the holocaust often during his stay with us and it impressed upon us how ashamed the German people were of this part of their country’s history. The walk through the camp was sobering and made us pause for prayer.

I neglected to mention that we visited an exhibit in Berlin that commemorated the wall coming down 20 years ago between East and West Germany in Berlin. There are numerous celebrations and exhibits in Germany this year celebrating that historic occasion. Although that is part of their recent history, visiting Germany is all about history, dating back to 500 B.C with the Franks and the Saxons.

After getting back to Sascha’s house, Norbert and Monika took us to Weimar to do some last minute grocery shopping in preparation for the next big event on Saturday, the family celebration of Norbert and Nico’s (Sascha’s brother) birthday party that evening.

Joining us were cousins Mark, Angela, and Jana, and Monika’s mother, Anna, and what followed was a big feast of five different meat selections, salads, side dishes and beer. We all had a ball communicating, because at least three of the relatives spoke English, giving all of us a break from playing charades.

The party went into the wee hours, and I remember asking Linda when was the last time we stayed up past 3 a.m. two days in row, and she said "Never!"

Sunday, we all slept in a little past 10 a.m., and caught up on some laundry for the next part of our trip.

We skipped church. Sascha joked that there are hundreds of beautiful churches in Germany, but they are never full, something that being part of a communist regime affected for generations to come. We toured churches and attended mass at an Irish Catholic church in Castlebar, Ireland, but not in Germany.

We traveled with Norbert and Sascha to Gera to a cook out with members of "Youth For Understanding" (YFU) in the beautiful Hofwiesenpark. We met exchange students from China, England, and Japan, and I ate as many of the famous Thuringia bratwursts as I could.

Later that day, Norbert took the three of us to one of the biggest reservoirs in Germany, the Blaealoch Dam, which was 20 KM long. Later we climbed the longest, steepest road to tour the Castle Burgt, which was very unique. Then we drove through the Burgt Forest, the Saale National Park and the Owl Forest.

We enjoyed a relaxing evening, and the next day (Monday), we all packed and both families, minus Nico, who reported back to his military post in Bavaria, headed north on the Autobahn (Germany’s version of the Interstate highway system in America) toward the Baltic Sea area.

Yes, you can drive fast on the Autobahn. We caravaned and I had to keep up with Norbert in our little Nissan Note. Several times we’d be cruising along at 120 miles an hour, but since much of the highway system was under construction due to the country’s stimulus plan, many times we went under 10 miles an hour.

In the late afternoon, we arrived at the Baltic Sea area and toured the streets and harbor area of Wismar and sampled the pickled fish from the small boat cafes tied up in the harbor. That evening, we drove to a cabin owned by a friend of the Vogel family, which was nestled in a beautiful area 200 yards from the sea, which is near the village of Stove.

After settling in, we drove to the village of Rerik and enjoyed a great fish dinner before retiring.

On Tuesday, we drove to Stralsund and toured that beautiful harbor city on the Baltic Sea and walked through the new Oceanographic Ozeaneum, which is located on the city’s historic waterfront.

Afterward, we had a nice lunch at the Jorgos Greek restaurant, where they surprised us all with a shot of Ouzo which we did not know was included with the lunch.

We also went to the Kuehlungsborn Beach where we walked and enjoyed ice cream and shopped for a few groceries. Our last evening together at the cabin Linda cooked us an American fried chicken dinner, which was as good as any restaurant dinner the whole trip.

We all slept in on beautiful, warm, sunny, Wednesday morning before packing and hugging Norbert and Monika good-bye. Germany had chilly weather the whole time we were there, but we enjoyed the warmhearted German people and their hospitality, particularly the Vogels.

We borrowed Sascha and Norbert’s GPS and drove to Hamburg, Germany, where we stayed in the beautiful downtown Renaissance Hotel.

That afternoon and evening, we toured the city and really enjoyed an hour long harbor boat tour of the Hamburg port. That evening we enjoyed a Portuguese dinner.

On Thursday, Sascha went to the main YFU headquarters in Hamburg for a meeting. The three of us shopped and roamed around downtown Hamburg and had a nice lunch at a cafe on a downtown lake.

When Sascha got back to the hotel we all packed up and Linda drove to Amsterdam, Netherlands. The excursion should have taken about four hours, but with all the construction along the Autobahn, it took six hours. Linda navigated the six lanes of traffic into Amsterdam and found our hotel easily because of the GPS.

We finally checked into the Blue Square Hotel, a place Linda booked on the Internet, which was located in the Middle Eastern populated part of Amsterdam, west of downtown. The staff was very friendly and helpful and we could catch the bus right outside the hotel.

We walked around a bit, and had a great dinner in the hotel before taking a short walk around the neighborhood. Linda has never been known for her gracefulness and in an oft repeated move, tripped and landed on the ground, doing a tuck and roll. She was carrying a glass bottle of water (really) and luckily did not slice herself up or sprain an ankle. This was not the trip for walking impairments. We often noted that the handicapped were at a severe disadvantage throughout Europe because there were stairs everywhere and lots and lots of walking. The boys and I helped Linda up and we headed back to the hotel for some much needed sleep.

My Friday started out very stressful as I had to get the car off the street before 9 a.m, or risk getting a locked boot put on the wheels. I thought I parked in the hotel parking lot behind the Blue Square, but instead I had parked two blocks away in a public garage.

To get to the hotel garage, one had to drive around to the east a total of six blocks and take the right turn back four blocks to the lot. I missed it and the lot I was in, closed early and we would have been messed up the next day for the airport.

After finding out I parked wrong, I discovered my keys were missing so Sascha and I headed back to move the car, and by the way praying works. The car was still there, the front doors were locked, but not the back doors and the keys were on the seat.

My nerves settled as we all boarded a tram and headed to the busy downtown area of Amsterdam. We rode the wrong way several times throughout the day on the tram, but finally figured out what number of tram we should be on to get to the next spot.

We dubbed the city, "A Human Ant Farm" since it was jammed with every nationality, walking here and there, riding on bikes, boats, motorcycles, scooters, cars, trams, buses, and every size of truck. Linda exclaimed numerous times, "Look at all the bicycles!" There were thousands of bicycles everywhere.

The highlight of what we toured that day was the Van Gogh Art Museum which is a must see for anyone visiting Amsterdam. We wanted to tour Anne Franks’ house, but the line was too long so we walked around and took in the atmosphere. We noticed almost everyone in amsterdam was young. The elderly would be taking a risk to walk the streets because there were so many people jostling on the narrow sidewalks, falling in front of a bus or a scooter was surely a likelihood. I held onto Linda’s arm, you never know when she is going to just trip and fall for no reason.

Italian was the fare for lunch, and dinner that evening was spent at a Moroccan Family Restaurant across the street from the Blue Square Hotel.

We noted with amusement that the Irish and the Dutch do not provide their hotel guests with washcloths nor top sheets; Sascha’s mother did give us a washcloth, but just a duvet rather than a top sheet. Other differences we noted was how strong their coffee was and that room temperature beer was pretty good.

We were all up and at the Amsterdam Airport early the next morning as Linda and Sascha dropped Ace and I off to catch our flight to Atlanta, then to Omaha.

Asa and I watched three movies from Amsterdam to Atlanta as we flew into the future of time, regaining the lost seven hour time difference.

Sascha was taking Linda to Cologne, Germany to catch a flight to Rome, and after turning in the car, Sascha took a train back home.

Asa and I picked up our pup Lil’ Wayne on our way home arriving in Panama around 11 p.m. full of memories of our family’s European vacation.