We were lucky enough to have traded babysitting for a ward member's car the last weekend we were in Belgium and decided to take some friends with us to Luxembourg for the day. We had driven through the country before, but we specifically wanted to visit what is called "the valley of the 7 chateaus" and the WWII Bastogne memorial. While it is small, Luxembourg is a gorgeous country, encompassing the Ardennes (a small, but beautiful mountain region), lots of incredible castles, war memorials and history.
Kevin had wanted to travel to Bastogne the entire time we were in Europe. The battle fought here was a smaller battle in and around the Battle of the Bulge and is depicted in the television series Band of Brothers. The memorial is a tribute from the Belgian population as a whole to the American nation in honor of the 76,890 American soldiers who lost their lives during the battle.
The memorial was really beautiful and it was amazing to feel the gratitude the people felt for the Americans - kind of a different feeling than in other places in Europe we went. We even had some people thank us and ask us if we had ancestors who fought there! We also happened to see the Belgium Mission President, his wife and 2 of his AP's while we were there. It was fun to see people we knew in a far away place.
We went to 3 different chateaus, basically castles, during our day there. This was the only one we were able to go inside of, but each was beautifully nestled in the valley, with great big dance halls and bedrooms. I wish we would have been able to see all of them! There are also supposed to be some great singing monks in one of them that we were too late to see - we will just have to go back!
The castle we were able to go inside of had some fun depictions of how people would have lived during that time period and various artifacts they found there. Here are the boys in front of the suits of armor and Kevin in the stocks. While these ones were amazing, Kevin sticks to his claim that "they don't make castles like they do in England." While I agree with him, I think I would have much rather lived in these fairly newer, warmer castles than the frigid medieval ones in England.
