It’s our last day just the four of us on the trip. Some friends will join us tomorrow, and then we’ll be traveling to Sweden, where Stefan’s family is. It’s a bit strange to realize it’s all coming to an end. We’ve seen the essentials here, so we’ll just enjoy being together and try to see something new today.

We wake up and watch the Presidential Debate that took place while we were sleeping. We’ll be voting one month after returning to the U.S.

Stefan has a call this morning, so I head out with the kids and Oliver. Instead of going to the playground, we decide to check out the stop just across the street. It turns out to be pottery painting place! And a cute little cafe with an area for small children to play. It’s awesome. We have a lot of fun painting. Oly puts his handprint on a plate, and Lillian and I paint bowls. Then they play in the tiny kid area because there’s a ton of cars. It’s a really nice morning.

We decide to spend the day at the German Technology Museum. It’s not like any other museum we’ve seen in the past few months, and we think the kids will love it. When we arrive, the kids are ecstatic to see the huge airplane hanging above the building. This is going to be great.

We make a quick stop at the adjoining restaurant for a lunch of sausages and pork with really good spaetzle. The restaurant has crayons and a basket full of coloring books. I love these little things that make meals so much easier.

The German Technology Museum is really great for kids! An airplane hangs in the entryway, inviting exclamations. Then we head upstairs where an exhibit has different object with sounds associated with them. The kids love pressing the buttons and interacting with each object.

The next room is the best though. It’s full of trains! Huge real trains engines and small model trains. Almost all of them have a ramp beside allowing us to take a peak inside. This room is all about steam engines, and there are probably 15 real trains in here. After this room we find another room of equal size full of more modern train engines. We look at trains for hours.

We walk through an area that describes how different things are made and actually has working workshops for making jewelry, suitcases etc. The kids take their time and look at every case describing how something is made. I wish some of the workshops were going because they’d really be into that.

We then follow signs outside to look at an old brewery. Back inside we go to the new building, four floors high and full of ships and airplanes! If the kids didn’t get tired, we could spend many more hours here. Instead we spend only an hour looking at boats, then do a quick swing around the airplanes.

Oly is falling asleep, and we all need to sit down. We take an Uber back home. We get back home just in time to meet our babysitter (our Airbnb host!). Sarah is a really sweet girl who is calm and happy to spend time with the kids. We lucked out. They leave for the playground, then stop for dinner at a place near the house. They seem to have a really great time.

Stefan and I are super fortunate. We’re going to see our friends Ana and Andrew from Los Angeles. They’ve been traveling in Europe for two weeks and made the stop through Berlin to spend some time with us. Stefan and I jump in a cab and meet them at the Topography of Terror. It doesn’t close until 8, and it’ll be nice to see a museum about the horrors of WWII without the kids.

We meet Ana and Andrew there and find the museum is closed for a special event tonight. Bummer!

We walk along the stretch of Berlin Wall there, then take a cab over to the Mitte area where we’ll have dinner. We find a cool spot for cocktails and catch up. I can’t describe how liberating it feels to be out with friends and no kids.

 
We go to dinner at a very cool place, Transit Restaurant.  They serve Thai tapas, and it’s amazing. The company is even better, so the whole dinner is perfect. We stop by a few bars afterward, trying to squeeze every drop of fun we can out of this night. It’s awesome.