We made it!

What a site we were at the airport – 12 checked bags plus the 2 car seat bags.  Thank goodness for curbside check-in!  

We made it through security without any incidents, got some waters and snacks for the plane ride, and then waited to board the plane.  Nathan and Alex were so excited that we had to corral them to keep them from pushing other people out of the way at the gate – they wanted to be the FIRST ones on the plane!  We weren’t the very first ones on the plane, but we were among the first, and the the boys were great getting settled in business class.  They were SO cute in the big seats!!! 

(We are all definitely spoiled for the overseas flights now – for this move flight, Merck flew us all business class, but as we keep trying to explain to the boys, for the rest of our flights we’ll have to fly coach!)

When the flight attendants came around to take orders for dinner, we were shocked to hear Nathan order the fish – Mahi Mahi with lemon butter sauce!  (I ordered the chicken just in case we needed to switch).  But he ate it all, and loved it!!!  And it was so cute, when the first course arrived (some grilled chicken), he proudly announced, “this is my appetizer”. 

Matthew slept like a champ on the plane, with Alex close behind.  Nathan had a harder time getting to sleep because he was so excited about the little TV, all the buttons on the seat, etc.  But once he fell asleep, everyone slept well for a few hours.  Alex was adorable in the big seat flattened out into a bed, he got all snuggled up with his pillow pet and the blanket!

Once we got to Zurich, we had a quite a challenge getting three overfilled carts full of luggage plus the stroller and three kids from the luggage carousel out through customs.  No porters to be found…note for anyone else traveling with this much luggage (ha!), call ahead to see if you can arrange a porter!  But we slogged through, each of us pushing 2 things, going a few feet with one of them, then coming back for the other.  We looked ridiculous to say the least!!!

One of our biggest concerns was the van that would be picking us up, the Swiss’ idea of a large vehicle is not quite the same as the American’s J  To get to the airport, we had a 20 person van pick us up, and we were sure that on the Zurich end we’d have a van, which would barely fit all five of us with a few bags, never mind everything we had.  So we were thrilled and relieved to find that our messages about needing a BIG vehicle had been heard, and they came to pick us up in a minibus which had plenty of room for all of us and our stuff.

The bus took us to our hotel in Luzern (with a quick potty stop about half way, can’t go anywhere with small children without having to stop!) where Merck has a residence apartment that we were able to use for a couple of days.  Luckily everyone crashed for a few hours, then we headed out to show the boys Luzern for the first time.  It was a beautiful day and we took a nice walk and then took the boys to an English Pub for dinner where we knew we could get chicken nuggets for the kids and some beer for us J  After a long day, convincing the kids to eat anything else was definitely not worth the effort.  We finished off the evening with the kids’ first taste of gelato, then headed back for everyone to crash…with Matthew in a Pack & Play in our room and the two boys in the living room (and everyone jet lagged!), we just hoped we’d get a little sleep…but no.  Matthew and Laura fell asleep quickly and early, but Nathan & Alex had a hard time settling down (it was 6 hours earlier back in Philadelphia).  Dave finally got them to sleep and then Matthew was up…and then Alex…and then Matthew…and it just continued like that…ahhh!  Finally Dave took Matthew for a midnight stroll along the lake and I got Alex back to sleep.  Nathan slept through it all.