Stalzer/Obele Family Blog

Two weeks ago, we were thinking about how to get to our flight from Frankfurt to Orlando. The flight left at 3pm, so no chance in flying up from Palma on the same day. We had a couple of options on how to get there: Fly to the grandparents, spend a night and drive in a rental car to Frankfurt, stay at a hotel close by or stay at the Sheraton at the airport.

Well, the Sheraton is usually above our “budget”, however Helga e-mailed all the hotels and asked for a quote for a “family room”. The Sheraton offered a “Family Room” at their club level at quite an attractive price, so the decision was easy - Why not….

After collecting our luggage, we went over the bridge to the Sheraton, checked in and we were quite impressed with the size of our appartement (two rooms and a huge bath with bathtub and shower).

At the upper level, there was a lounge with a small buffet and (free) drinks. So after getting settled in in the hotel, we first went over to the airport to get some “workbooks” (paintbooks) for the boys, some books for us to read and a bite to eat. We took the driver-less high train over to Terminal 2 and went to an mexican restaurant.

In the Terminal 1, there was a very nice exposition of a Mercedes 300SL. Wolfgang would have loved the car. The boys were quite impressed by the differences between a “high-end” car 50 years ago and now.

After getting back to the hotel, we went up to the lounge. The boys had some water and we had our WAOVWB - “We Are On Vacation WeissBier”. The boys drew some very nice pictures of the day. The boys are clearly experienced travellers and at home in the lounges of the world-class hotels…

At around 10:00 we “retired” to our suite and went to bed. All of us, basically fell into the bed and slept until today.

After getting up this morning, the boys enjoyed the big bathtub and Helga and I had a “wellness shower” (Hot & Steam).

We went up again to the loung and the very friendly personal immediately got some “Latte Machiatos” for Helga and me and we started to enjoy the buffet. Felix and I had some (fresh) scrambled eggs with cheese and herbs. Thereafter some fruit and croissants. Max had the “Croissants-Extreme” Breakfast (He ate 3 or 4 of them. They were really good and fresh). Helga had the Salmon and fish breakfast.

After having our stomachs filled, we went to the airport to check in. Amazingely, there was basically no queue. We didn’t have to wait at all in line and got our luggage away really fast.We went another time with the train over to the other terminal. Watched a couple planes depart, went back to our hotel room and relaxed and finally checked-out at the hotel and went through security to the departure gate.

Today was the day - in a couple of hours we would - hopefully - leave to the airport and start our vacation. But, there were still computers to configure, last minute bug fixes, some clothes to pack, garbagge to bring to the recycling bin, …, and of course the right kind of inspiration -  LAST MINUTE PANIC.

Felix and Max were extremely excited. They did not know what to do. In their rooms, back to the living room, some questions, such as “when do we leave”, the some more playing and again “don’t we have to leave”. Finally they were allowed to watch some cartoons (a big thanks to DisneyChannel).

Well, we (that means Thomas) was quite busy with our whole technic equipment - one more parameter to set, some files to copy, “did I do that already” - well, the normal stuff. I took care of the easier things. Garbagge, clothes, refrigerator, etc.

Finally at 1:30 pm we were ready to move. Wolfgang agreed to drive us to the airport. It is amazing how may suitcases one need for only two weeks of vaccation and of course, we “packed light” - BG. We were already checked-in and had our boarding passes, so no waiting just to drop off our luggage. It was the boys job to bring us to the correct gate - the two of them behaved like detectives or scouts to find out where we have to go.

While we waited to board our flight to Frankfurt, we noticed more and more airport personnel showing up in front of our airplane. Felix and Max were excited as they found out that the front tyre of the airplain had to be changed.

The question, that came to my mind was “How many people do you need to change a tyre on a 737?”

Well, as you see from the pictures there was quite some manpower involded to change a single airplane tyre - but, due to this little event, we had something to do. The plane almost left on time. Later this evening Felix drew a picture of that event.

After a normal flight to Frankfurt we collected our many suitcases and tried to find the hotel.