Austria May-June 2014

We traveled back to our home country Austria, mainly for our wedding, but also to spend time with family and friends that we haven't seen in such a long time. Here we want to share a few photos and memories of the wonderful time we had! Thank you to everyone who contributed to that! Hoping you have fun watching the photos!

Wir reisten in unser Heimatland Österreich, hauptsächlich um zu heiraten, aber auch um Zeit mit unseren Familien und Freunden zu verbringen die wir schon so lange nicht mehr gesehen hatten. Hier möchten wir ein paar Fotos und Erinnerungen an diese wunderbare Zeit teilen! Vielen Dank an alle die dazu beigetragen haben! Wir hoffen ihr habt Spass mit den Fotos! 

Let's start with just a few family activities:


Tom's stag do:


Luci's hens night:


Tom went away with friends for a few days to "Area 47" - an adventure playground for adults:


Then things started to get serious, and we had the civil ceremony of our wedding:


Before the actual wedding could take place, quite a few preparations had to be done. Some were already completed in NZ, there was plenty left to do in Austria:


The youths from both Tom and Luci's village each set up a "Schwübogen" at their parent's houses:


Then the day had finally arrived: our wedding!


We were lucky enough to have some visitors from far away, our Kiwi friends Beth and Jamie came from London, Susie and Ben made a stopover on their Europe-trip and our Australian friends Jacki and Ash with their baby daughter Florence came from Vienna. We had a few relaxing days together after the wedding:


Luci met with her school friends a few days later:


Now we are already back in Dunedin. It's "a bit" colder than in Austria but we still set out to do a beachy photo-shoot in our wedding clothes:

Unterkünfte für unsere Hochzeit

Schön langsam wird`s ernst - die Hochzeitsplanungen gehen in die Endphase. Für alle die von ein bissl weiter anreisen und sich vielleicht eine Unterkunft in der Nähe suchen möchten, hier sind einige Vorschläge:

Landgasthof Huber, Wagram

Hier findet die Hochzeitsfeier statt, es gibt einige Gästezimmer, die meisten sind allerdings bereits voll. http://www.landgasthof-huber.at/

Winzerhaus Kattner, Reichersdorf  

http://www.kattnerwein.at/

Gasthof Stelzhammer, Inzersdorf

+43 (0)2782 84807

Winzerhaus Schöller, Wagram

http://www.weinschoeller.at/

Traisental generell

Broschüre herunterladen

In dieser Broschüre findet ihr Unterkünfte im ganzen Traisental.

Thailand and Cambodia Trip with Monika and Alfred

Not expecting to get back home to Austria in 2012 (which turned out otherwise, see previous post) we made plans to meet up with Tom's sister Monika and her partner Alfred "somewhere in the middle". This somewhere in the middle turned out to be Thailand - approx. 12h flight from both locations.

We spent a few days in Bangkok and then went on to Cambodia, where we visited a few temples (Angkor Wat & Co), drove on the Bush Railway (see below) and visited the capital Phnom Penh. Then we went back to Thailand and relaxed for some days on the island Koh Kood before going back to Bangkok.

We enjoyed the food a lot, but what we enjoyed even more was the nice company we had!

Photos

Da wir 2012 eigentlich nicht geplant hatten nach Österreich heimzufliegen, haben wir Pläne gemacht uns mit Tom`s Schwester Monika und ihrem Freund Alfred "irgendwo in der Mitte" zu treffen. Dieses irgendwo in der Mitte hat sich dann als Thailand ergeben, ungefähr 12 Flugstunden sowohl von Ö als auch NZ. 

Wir haben uns in Bangkok getroffen und dort ein paar Tage verbracht bevor es nach Kambodscha weiter ging. Dort haben wir uns einige Tempel angeschaut (Angkor Wat & Co), fuhren mit der Busch-Eisenbahn (Video siehe unten) und haben die Hauptstadt Phnom Penh besucht. Danach gings zurück nach Thailand. Nach ein paar Tagen Entspannung auf der Insel Koh Kood machten wir uns wieder auf nach Bangkok.

Wir haben den Urlaub sehr genossen, vor allem das Essen, noch viel mehr aber die nette Reisegesellschaft!

Fotos





Video Bush Railway:

Home sweet home

You could call it a bit short-notice when my sister Anna told us in August that she was going to get married just a month later. After a bit of planning here and there we made it possible to go home to Austria for a short visit! Imagine our excitement, and we couldn't even tell anyone - it was to be a secret/surprise wedding! So we turned up at Vienna airport and Anna, her hubby-to-be and their son Jakob picked us up. At that point they had just texted their parents, siblings and grand-parents that they were going to marry the next day.

On the way home Tom then called his mom and asked what it would be for dinner. If it was Cordon bleu, he'd come by ... by the time we got there, his mum had already dried her tears (with help from a neighbour and some Schnaps) and the Cordons were cooking. We hadn't told Luci's family yet but when we got to Anzenberg, the "bush telephone" had already worked and we were expected! Was quite a shocker still!

The two weeks that followed then were full of friends, family, heaps of great food and wine - just lovely! A few pics for you to see a few things we were up to!

First a few pics from before we even started to Austria - we wanted to bring our parents some pictures from us in our traditional clothes on a beach in NZ. Our flatmate Noelia played the photographer. Tom also took the chance for a bit of "Herminating". The pics were taken in Sandfly bay, by the way.

The first and most important event of the trip was Anna and Bernhard's wedding - quite an unusual wedding in Austrian terms, nonetheless a great one. Congratulations again!

And here's a compilation of pics from the rest of our trip!

  

We are still here!

Hello out there! You might have been wondering already whether we're still in NZ, yes we are. But even in such a stunning country everyday live gets you! But I'll try and catch up with what we've been up to since aehm ... May.

Alrighty, let's start with a beautiful trip  to ...

Lake Tekapo

For a change, that's not a seaside location but still worthy going there. Beautiful bright blue lakes amidst mountains - feels a bit like home! We spent a few days (in June) in the area, also visited Mt Cook village and the Hot Pools in Tekapo, all very relaxing.

To pass winter in Dunedin, our friend Cohen had the great idea to throw a ...

Cocktail Party

(well he kind of won it from a Vodka producer) So we all dressed up and partied!

We also got a bit out into the snow on our ...

Cross-country skiing trip

Joined by Ben, Susie and Noelia we ran to a hut on our skis where we cooked, played, and stayed the night. Next day we skied out again. 

To keep warm (and well fed) we took turns with our flatmate Noelia and cooked our favorite Austrian and Spanish dishes in our

International Nights

Yummm .... here are some pics of only some of them

And then it was already 

Spring

And Tom went on some trips with his mates: 

Paua diving
Boat trip





Und wer gern von unseren Abenteuern auf Deutsch hoeren will, bitte auf Skype anrufen :)
LG Luci

2 Trips: Easter time around Lake Wakatipu and a Doubtfulsound Cruise

In the last few months, 2 great trips were on our plans. First we spent Easter with some friends in the area around Queenstown. And only last weekend we went for the first time down to Fjordland in the very South of NZ and spent two days on a cruise through the stunningly beautiful Doubtful Sound. Both trips were amazing experiences and showed us two different, beautiful sides of NZ.

In den letzten paar Monaten haben wir zwei tolle Ausflüge gemacht. Zuerst haben wir Ostern mit einigen Freunden in der Gegend rund um Queenstown verbracht. Und letztes Wochenende fuhren wir das erste Mal nach Fjordland in den Süden Neuseelands hinunter. Wir verbrachten dort zwei Tage auf einer Schiffsfahrt durch den atemberaubend schönen Doubtful Sound. Beide Ausflüge waren wunderbare Erlebnisse und zeigten uns zwei unterschiedliche, schöne Seiten von Neuseeland.

Hike to Lake Rere

Rain, sandflies and mountains - that's what you can expect in Fjordland. Fortunately we just got the mountains!

Visitors in Dunedin

We can hardly believe our luck how many of our friends traveled all the way to NZ this year. But I assume us being here is only a good excuse to visit this beautiful country. Here are the pics from Michael&Ulli's visit in February and Giggi&Martina's visit in April. Both were great times with lots of fun and adventure! Hopefully our visitors liked it as much, too!

Wir können es kaum fassen, wie viele von unseren Freunden die weite Reise nach Neuseeland auf sich genommen haben. Aber ich schätze, dass wir hier sind, ist nur eine gute Ausrede um dieses wunderschöne Land zu besuchen. Hier gibt's Fotos von unseren Besuchern im Februar - Michael&Ulli - und im April - Giggi&Martina. Beide Male hatten wir eine grossartige Zeit mit viel Spass und Abenteuer! Hoffentlich hat's unseren Besuchern auch so gut gefallen!

Michael & Ulli

Giggi & Martina