family weekend

We had H's nephew and niece + boyfriend sleeping over this weekend and basically spent the whole weekend with them and their parents (H's sister and her husband who happens to be H's boss). It's awfully cold already (and I've been sneezing and coughing since I got here - and am waiting for my stuff, so apart from a bunch of summer clothes, I have like 2 pairs of long pants and two sweaters), and it kept raining. But we managed to inspect the pride and joy of H's company, their growing premises where they store and treat different chemicals in a small town nearby and their storage area in Magdeburg with giant tanks set up during WWII (my brother-in-law loves to tell people that they were set up by - gasp - Albert Speer) on Saturday and went home with a detour to the spot where the Mittellandkanal crosses the Elbe.

Sunday (just like Saturday) was started off with a biiiiiig German family breakfast, followed by a boat trip on the Saale (which unfortunately was interrupted by a couple of showers), followed by a couple of coffees and hot chocolates in a street cafe (that provided soft red blankets for those who dared to take a advantage of the scarce rays of sun), followed by a walk to the Halloren- and Salinenmuseum, the museum set up on the spot of one of two former salt springs here, the main source of pride and income in Halle for many centuries (mind you, nowadays, it's H's company that provides them with the brine they use for demonstrations), followed by a walk across the historic city center and a dinner in one of my favorite places here, a Czech restaurant.