Knorr Family Adventures

First of all I have to admit that very often I have a choice - do I sit down and write something or do laundry or fill out some endless paperwork or even spend some time learning German.  As you can probably guess blog does not always win that battle ... This, however, I feel like such an epic disaster of various proportions that I have to share.  In at least Pittsburgh (and probably most places in USA) when a child turns 5, you go to your local elementary school and sign him (her) up.  That pretty much sums up the process of getting a place in a school.  Yes, you have to fill out an application and probably provide some medical records but overall fairly straight forward.  At least that's how I remember it. Fast forward 4 years, change a location to Germany and get ready to pour yourself a drink :)  Getting Anton into a school has been almost as painful of a process as finding Andrei the next school, and he is only 5 going into first grade.  I do have to say that his speech

German educational system is not for the faint of heart.  Andrei is in 4th grade and we have truly loved his teacher and his school but next year he has to go a different school and we are currently in the process of trying to figure out what that school is.  There are several tiers: Hauptschule (main stream minimal education and no future) Realschule (medium level from which you can either transfer to gymnasium oberstufe or get Ausbilding) and Gymnasium oberstufe is the last 2 years of Gymnasium and it can be hard to adjust to the level of work required after Realschule Ausbilding is the education that is required for most hands-on jobs (hairdresser, carpenter,etc.)  Gymnasium (highest level of education).   There are also two types of Gesamtschule.   First type called IGS (Integrative Gesamtschule) seems to be the most similar to American middle/high school where all kids learn together but get separated into 2 levels for subjects such as math and English.   The other typ

This year was the first year we actually did something on Halloween.  It just so happens that I am not a big fan of this particular holiday so I can’t say that I missed it over the last couple years.  We moved to Germany 5 days before Halloween.  Anton was just 2 and a half years old so has no memories of this fun-filled night at all, other boys remember the idea of walking around and collecting candy.  Halloween is not a German holiday - there are very few people trick-or-treating on the streets, and most of the costumes in the stores are scary as opposed to fun. This whole introduction now actually leads to a story.  We live about 30 minutes away from the American military base (and a rather large one at that), so I decided that it’s about time Anton gets to enjoy Halloween how it’s meant to be in the States.  Andrei and Ilya refused to go without giving me any reasons and even after some persuasion they still opted to stay at home.  Anton, however, was super excited by the pros

Unbelievably I have had no time to write here at all because life has been extremely exciting and busy.  Bullet point version as a quick update. Andrei and Ilya joined Cub Scouts and it has definitely added a new level of complexity to our life but they are enjoying it. Andrei went on his first camp out and a night time hike (with Chris) which went from 9PM to midnight.  No flashlight in the forest!  Part of the scouting does involve a fair amount of paperwork but I am almost caught up on that. We are busy trying to navigate secondary schools for Andrei because it's that time of the year when open houses are happening and application will have to be made soon.  Chris seems to be having a hard time understanding that now is the time when we have to pick Andrei's track which will be STEM. I'll try to write separately on that because it's actually an interesting topic which deserves its own topic. The amount of tests and homework is slowly getting a bit overwhelming

The most amazing time we had in Ireland was on the Cliffs of Moher.   We opted for a guided tour through Doolin Cliff Walks and did not regret it one bit.   The tour included 5 of us and a young American couple.   The guide was amazing in helping to coral and guide the boys, even holding their hands when it was getting bit too close to the edge. ( The Cliffs rise between 120  meters (390 feet) to 214 meters (702 feet) above the sea level so it's a bit high!) There is really no words to describe the walk but it’s spectacular.   When you turn away from the water, you see this Picnic time- after the guided tour, but still very much on the top

Lately, life is really busy and stressful.  So to explain a bit - it's busy because we have 3 active boys with various levels of needs and desires - here is a break down of my week.  And this is a pretty good week with Chris while working late a couple of days but in town to help with some night time stuff. Monday  Ilya to school by 8:00 (he had to learn a very short Russian "poem"over the weekend) Anton has extra German lessons from 9:35 to 11:15 to which he needs to be taken to and then taken to kindergarten. From 14:30 until 16:00 Andrei has special reading therapy. Pick up Anton and Ilya.   Tuesday Ilya to school at 7:30 Anton to speech therapy by 8:00 Anton to kindergarten by 9:00  Andrei speech therapy from 13:45 to 14:30 Then I rush to get Ilya from school and take Ilya and Andrei together for their math tutoring Get Anton from kindergarten hopefully around 16:30 Wednesday - my peaceful day! Ilya to school by 8:00 Anton's German from 8:35

Our current lifestyle is rather interesting.  We are not (im)migrants, we are not military, and we are not fully expats. Our kids do not go to international school, they go to local German schools; we have to deal with German government services yet our knowledge of German is rather limited (we make it work nonetheless). This week we said goodbye to our friends who are moving to Israel by the end of the week.  It sucks for us but we are happy for them.  It took them about 4 months from "we might go" to "leaving on Sunday."  More or less the same time frame our move happened.  Partially because of them, partially because of wanting to have less stuff, we have been clearing our stuff - file cabinet, baby/toddler books, some random stuff.  The question that while is not always on our mind, but comes up regularly enough is how long are we planning on staying here.  According to our original plan, we were not even supposed to be here in Germany as I type this up

Last week was first week of school for all 3 boys, so before I forget I wanted to get it written down.  I will get back to our USA vacation as well as our Ireland vacation and our spring break ... you get the idea.  So from youngest to oldest...  Anton did a really good job going back to kindergarten but he is speaking a lot of English to his teachers.  Adjustment is a bit slow; however, he is having lots of fun :)  He is probably in his last year of kindergarten but we will have to see how his "matures" this year because the elementary school principle has to interview him and decide whether Anton can sit through 4 classes a day! Anyway, Anton has a little more work to do this year as his is officially a Vorschuler and very proud of it :)  He will be going to Vorlauf class 3 times a week where he gets extra German lessons, he will be going to to recorder lessons (not sure how often) and he will start preschool classes after the fall break in October.  Ilya start

We had a great time in Pittsburgh even though the ending did not go exactly as planned, and the time went by too fast.  We visited with some friends but not everybody we wanted, we enjoyed playground and pool time, gone fishing, did homework and some yard work.   

Caves are kind of another one of those Irish attractions that is somewhat a must.   We choose Aillwee cave - partially because its location worked with our planned path, partially because it sounded pretty cool.   Guided tour is a the only way to see it and it was our family and another couple – so semi-private.   The tour guide was super kid friendly and answered about 100 questions that Andrei had.   The cave itself is about buzzilion years old going back to Ice Age, it was discovered in 1940s, but nothing done with it until 1970s.   The stalactites and stalagmites are over 100 years old that we were able to see and even touch and an underground river and the waterfall at the end of the of the path were absolutely worth the experience.    Corcomboe Abbey sounded really cool when I read about it - it was 13th century monastery that was built out of local limestone and located in the beautiful scenic mountains.  The beautiful scenery also makes it a bit hard to get to and i

I really enjoy going back through our travels and hope that at some point I can stay on top of things but that time is not now :) The plans for our fall break (nearly a year ago!) were a bit spontaneous as Chris saw sufficiently cheap tickets to Ireland and we just went.   We traveled around the island and while in 7 days you cannot visit every single thing, you can see a big part of Ireland. We flew into Dublin, rented a car and went north where we spend our first 2 nights at a  Pillo Hotel in Ashbourne that had a fitness center with a pool attached to it, 2 restaurants to choose from and a working wi-fi. On the following morning we started out exploring Battle of the Boyne.   The battle was hugely significant in Irish history since it pitted Catholics (James II of England) versus Protestants (William of Orange) and as we all know that conflict lasted many years.   Funny enough (according to Wiki) most of the Irish people supported James because he declared freedom of re