Legoland Deutschland - Miniland

We found out shortly before we left the States that there was a Legoland in Germany, only an hour outside of Stuttgart.  I instantly decided that we should take Brady there.  I've not been to the one in California yet, and the one in Florida just opened this past October, so it was going to be the first Legoland experience for all of us!  All week we kept checking the weather to see if we'd have a nice day on the weekend and lucked out that Saturday was going to be beautiful (it rained all last week, and this week doesn't look any better).  It was perfect since Brady was cooped up all week and we were finally doing something that he could enjoy.

Right before you enter the parking lot, there are a few larger than life Lego bricks on a grassy hill, and Brady spotted them immediately, exclaiming, "Wow! Wow!"  I knew we were in for a great day.

Brady trying to take the tools from the plumber outside the bathrooms.

This season, they just opened their new ride, Ninjago, and have put out a few things to mark the occasion.  This is made from all sand!  A while back we watched a TV show that makes things like this and it's unbelievable the work and talent that goes into something like this.

The main attraction at any Legoland park around the world, is the Miniland.  It's where they've actually made exact scale replicas of cities.  Every park has different cities in their Mini Land, usually places within their own country or region.  The scales are 1:20, so are still quite massive depending on which real city they are replicating.  It was really amazing and we can't wait to visit some of the other Legolands in the US to check out the cities they have.  I'll let you look at the pictures and try to guess which city they are (HINT: none are from the US).  On the last picture from that city, I'll reveal which city it is.  Have fun!

The first one we saw wasn't a real city, but the fictional land of Ninjago.

Hamburg, Germany

Amsterdam

Berlin, Germany

Venice

This is Augsburg, Germany, which is located between Stuttgart and Munich (closer to Munich).

Neuschwanstein Castle

Munich Airport

Burg Pfalzgrafenstein on the Rhine River Valley

Frankfurt, Germany

Dusseldorf, Germany

Cochem Castle

Munich's Soccer Arena

Lucerne, Switzerland

Seeing a lot of the places in Miniland that we hadn't traveled to while over here, made us a little bummed out.  Honestly, with how packed our schedule has been with traveling, I don't know where we'd have fit another trip or two in.  Hopefully, someday Andy will have to come back to headquarters for a business trip, and we've decided I'll come with him and we'll scope out northern Germany, the Netherlands, and England, since we didn't make it there during our stay.

They're doing a lot with Star Wars right now, so they had added a few new places to Miniland.  There were all different places and scenes from all of the Star Wars movies.

As you can see, we took quite a few pictures in Miniland, and that was before we even made it to the rest of the park!  I'll have to write a separate post about all the things we did in the park, bur for now, I hope you enjoyed the images from Miniland.  The pictures really don't do the size and how exact every thing was the proper justice it deserves.

Puzzle Playtime

Toys R Us has a great rewards program and they increase the rewards you earn during the holiday season.  I also have their credit card, so I double my rewards, and after Christmas had earned $50 to spend before we left the country.  This was a great opportunity to snag a few more compact toys for Brady that I could fit in our luggage so he could play with new toys as soon as we got there.  I decided that puzzles would be a good way to spend the reward money, since Brady didn't really have any.  I got him three peg puzzles, featuring pets, farm animals, and vehicles (seen in the pictures).  The animal ones made the noises when the peg was placed in the right hole.  We opened one to see how he'd do it before we left for Germany.  He tried, but couldn't figure out how to rotate the pieces to make them fit.  Within one month of our arrival in Germany, he was putting the pieces in the puzzle like a pro!  His favorite one is of course the one with all the construction vehicles.

He also likes to drive around the vehicle pieces ;)

 

He had gotten so good at the peg puzzles that I pulled out the last puzzle, which is a bit harder.  It has 6 pieces making up a police car.  He loves it since it's a car, and can get the windows and wheels in the right spot easily.  He still runs into a little bit of trouble with the blue doors, because he likes to put the wheels in first, making it a tighter fit for the doors.  He's still learning that the curved part of the door goes on the outside and the flat part goes on the inside.  He does almost everything with a measured calculation and loves to figure out new things.  I joke that one day he'll become an engineer and work at Bosch like his daddy ;)