Each home varies SO much to the next and each one has its quirk or two.... One may have literally no kitchen space, some have no driveway, some have 6 tiny bedrooms, some have no laundry area etc. One home we looked at had a very long windy, thin driveway that "moving vans could not get up". Yikes. Because of the quirks, and the extremely competitive renting market here, you are advised to sign a lease on the spot (as long as it is preapproved by the base housing) to a home you like because tomorrow it will most likely be gone.
We looked at a zillion homes online and narrowed it down to a few.
The first one we looked at was GORGEOUS. It was completely renovated on the inside. We loved its location as well. It was walking distance to some BEAUTIFUL nature trails, it overlooked a valley.... Its quirk? It had NOOO backyard. Literally. It had NO driveway. No frontyard. You took one step out your front door and you were on a sidewalk in the middle of a highly populated German Village. There was no where for the kids to play so we had to move on.
So then we looked at this one today.. and..we..fell.. in.. love. This one is in a cute little German village, walking distance from bakeries and shopping. But we are at the top of a "culdesac" kind of thing so the kids have plenty of safe space to play. The backyard is gorgeous. It is fully landscaped with an eating area, a bench in the middle of flowers, lots of greenery that the boys had a blast exploring in. Behind our home is all open land too.
Our landlords are a very very sweet older German couple who typically rent to Americans. They actually live on one side of us and across the street is an American family with a 3 year old boy.
The home is spacious, especially for a German home. One of the quirks to this home is our upstairs bathroom is HUGE, abnormally huge (at least by US standards) It is the size of a good size bedroom in the US. The balcony in the above picture overlooks the valley.
There is a beautiful wooden, spiral staircase in the middle of the home and with Cathedral ceilings on the upstairs bedrooms.
Above is the space to the left and right of our home. It was super foggy this morning, so you can't really see the space behind us, but it just beautiful green fields.
Landon picked up the whole showing a peace sign in pictures thing from some friends in Texas. ha
Anyway, we are excited. Landon will also be going to the DOD elementary school that we would prefer; the one on the base that Nick will work at (Ramstein). This schools has 15 (!!!!) Kindergarten classes alone, each with 18 students! Gavin MAY go to the local German Kindergarten. German Kindergarten is for 3 year olds and is two half days I believe.
Thanks for stopping by to see our home, we'll post more later.
Love to all!!
xo
