Zürich with friends

I only usually blog once a week but this week I've gone a bit mad but then again, we are doing more things to document :)

Yesterday (Wednesday) we met up with our good friends. They live in the Basel area and we are in the St. Gallen area so we decided to meet up in the middle - Zürich.

The hubster had read about a "walk around the Zürich airport" and decided that that sounded like fun. We could walk and talk and see planes land and take off. Yes, he definitely has the Y chromosone! To be fair, it was rather cool being so close to the runways and seeing the planes take off. Sometimes the earth would tremble!

Even though we'd talked to each other on the phone, we hadn't seen our friends since last summer, where we spent two weeks holiday together. We'd rented appartments next door to each other and we shared a large balcony/terrace together. We had wanted to repeat the experience but the appartment was already booked out for the next few summers. We had booked two years in advance as it was......perhaps next year.

So two of our four and three of their five kids accompanied us to Zürich airport. There were quite a few plane spotters there with their cameras and massive lenses, and we found out that the new Airbus A380 was due to take off in a short while - how lucky for us!

The Airbus A380 from Singapore Airlines

Noah

Delfina

The hubster and Paul

We thought this was hilarious - "Beware of tanks"!! 

A jogger passed us by and Delfina called out "Watch out for the tanks!" We couldn't stop laughing. It was only later on that we realised that the area around the airport is used for training by the Swiss military. In fact, we saw two groups of soldiers in their gear wearing gas masks. It was so hot yesterday and I can only imagine how they must have felt.

I snapped this shot of a street sign and thought it was representative of the way those soldiers must be feeling......"am I in hell?" Our nephew, Jonathan is doing his basic training at the moment; we hope he is having an okay time.

The kids (and adults) were hot and bothered so we decided to take a break and have a cool down in the stream. It was nice to sit for a while and the kids had fun paddling  in the water. We couldn't believe the weather; it was so warm and we even got sunburnt. Who would have thought we would have needed suncream in April? I think it was about 22 °c..........

It was nice to see each other again and I guess that one of the negative things about moving away is you leave good friends behind. You would think we would see more of each other as we only live two hours away, but those two hours may just as well be 12 hours! 

Delfina has been my good friend from the beginning (when I came to Switzerland). She and Paul got married the same year we did and we had our first three kids within a half year of each other. Jordan and Romina have a relationship close to that of a sibling. Even though they are both 14 resp. 15 years old they never went through that boy/girl separation thing that most kids go through. I think it's cool. Each time they see each other, they just pick up where they left off. It's like that with Delfina and myself. We know each other so well.

I always tell my children that one of the most important things they'll ever do here on earth is make relationships that will hopefully last an eternity. You can't take "things" with you but you can take those meaningful relationships. I want my kids to be their best friends. I want them to be able to rely on each other and be there for one another. I want them to feel that family is the best thing ever.......

Hugs all,

Rebecca