Thanksgiving in Paris

This year, instead of having a traditional turkey meal on Thanksgiving, we took a train to Paris for a few days. We went with our friends, Matt and Beth Keysor, and their baby daughter, Laura. Matt is the most recent addition to the provider staff at Jeremy's clinic, and we're happy he and his family are stationed here!


Even though we didn't celebrate Thanksgiving on the actual day, we did have our Life Group Thanksgiving meal the Sunday before. So we were able to have a delicious turkey dinner AND get to go to Paris--win, win!


We took an ICE train from Kaiserslautern to Paris--which only took 2 1/2 hours. Traveling on the Deutschbahn is so much easier than driving or flying. I wish there was an ICE train to everywhere.


I've rarely heard anyone say anything good about their Paris hotel, but thankfully, the place we stayed in was a gem. It was a cute little B&B conveniently located a short metro ride from the sites of Paris.


Family picture in front of the facade of Notre Dame. From this angle, honestly, Notre Dame is not particularly impressive.....


But from this angle, it is probably the most awe-inspiring cathedral we've seen. Since Notre Dame is located on an island, there's not any buildings obstructing the view of it.

Bridge over the river Seine

P.S. one of the great things about traveling with other adults is that Jeremy and I are actually in pictures together--imagine that!

Matt, angelic baby Laura, Jeremy, and our not-so-angelic children in the foreground, with the Louvre pyramid in the background.



The Place de la Concorde--the Egyptian obelisk on the left is where the guillotine was placed during the French Revolution.

The Champs-Elysées with the Arc de Triomphe in the distance.

Made it to the Arc, after only one stop at McDonalds (I know, lame, but we had 3 small children with us who had to either go to the bathroom or have their diaper changed). We enjoyed the walk to the Arc so much, that we decided to walk to the Eiffel tower from there.

This square had some great Eiffel tower views, so we stopped for a picture before heading down to the base of the tower.

Down past the tower, there is a great little playground where we let the kids burn off some energy while we waited for it to get dark--so we could see the tower lit up.

It was definitely worth the wait!