Our arrival and first few days here

One whole month has already past. Time to look back how things have worked out for us since we got here.

 The flight was long and bumpy. We started around 4 pm at Peter's fathers house in Staten Island, drove to JFK, hung out over there for a few hours and ate our last meal of Burger King and departed around 9pm.

 By that time the girls were ready to go to sleep and missed dinner and the movie (too bad, it would have been a good one: The cronicles of Narnia: Voyages of the Dawn Treader), overall things went smooth, except for the fact that Laura vomitted on just about every plane and every airport (Dublin and London, except Stuttgart!).

The soft pretzel and coke we ate/drank at Heathrow airport in a make shift picknick at the gate, must have had some miraculous effect on her digestion :)

Well, once we got to Germany around 6.30 pm we still had about an hour and a half of driving through the country side ahead of us in order to get to my parents house. Needless to say, it took as a few days to get back on track with sleep cycles.

The very next morning I already had a job interview about 30 miles from here lined up. Feeling like a zombie and not having had time to prepare or research I felt like my chances were extremely slim to make it halfway decent through the interview. Well, to make the story short, the place called me about 2 weeks later that I got the job.
One last word about the job situation: The other day I had another job interview, at the county hall,  that I had applied for months ago. Knowing that I had already secured the other job, I almost didn't go to this interview, but ended up going just out of curiosity and after all, the more interview experience I get in the long run the better. Sure enough, 4 people ended up asking me questions, all super professional yet friendly. It's about an administrative job, 50 % postition, helping people with disabilities of any kind to apply for government or private assistance. Probably lots of paperwork, yet nice team and great benefits. Besides having a secure job. I got an offer for this job as well and will check it out tomorrow morning.
I haven't decided on either one yet, both are with people with disablities, the first one in helping them finding independent living arrangements and helping organizing their lives, the other applying for money and services from the government. The first job is in walking distance from our new old house, the other can be reached by public transportation (first train, then bus) in about half and hour total.
The first job is 25.5 hours, the second 20.
Lots to think about.
I also have to figure out how to do everything with the kids once Peter finds a job, too. Of course my parents are close by but I don't want to overuse them as baby sitters. They have a new thing in my daughters elementary school called "reliable school", which means that the kids can stay an extra hour or two if they are already dismissed at  11 or 12 am, if the parents are working.
This is the school schedules of Laura and Natalie:

Their day starts either at 7.35 or 8.25, they get out either at 11 (which is way too early to get anything done in the morning!!!), 11.50 or 12.40 the latest. Most days my girls don't have the same schedule, so I end up walking one of them to school at 7.35, the other 45 minutes later, then I have about three hours and have to go back to get the first one and then go back 45 minutes later to get the second one.
Well, lots of exercise, that's for sure, ha, ha.
Tuesdays both of them have after noon school for another hour and a half.
And that's it!!!

Now just a few pictures óf our first few days here:
The first celebration was my birthday the day after we got here:




Prosecco :)



Then we had Easter:

Then the girls got the new old house all cleaned up before Peter came. Mostly sweeping and clipping the weeds :)

Waiting for Daddy's train to come in:

At Oma's house:

 On the steps of our new old house:

Finally here!!!

To be continued!!!!