International family meeting at the Aachener Christmas market

We started December with a international family reunion.  After meeting my Canadian second cousin twice removed for the first time very briefly last year in May, we were happy to read in our messages that he was planning to come back for another Belgium trip.  

And when last year's travel schedule had been very tight with limited time to meet, he tried to get more time to tour and to meet more relatives this time.  He knew we have a guest room that is always welcome to him. 

Coming in December meant that he'd love to see some Christmas markets, but we must be honest: the German Christmas markets beat those in Belgium so in our brainstorms we advised him to fit a German Christmas market in the itinerary.
But we have some joined German relatives that he has not met yet, so wouldn't it be stupid to visit a German Christmas Market without meeting our German cousin in xth degree? 

Fortunately messaging back and forth, discussing how crazy busy the Christmas markets could be, checking driving distances for all of us, and ordering just in time the Umwelt stickers (because we assumed Belgian rental cars would not be ready to drive into the city centre), ...but it all worked out.  Fortunately for my stress levels, the drive up there was calm and there was still sufficient parking space early in the morning)


And then there we were... a couple of cousins who share an ancestor 4 generations before who migrated to Canada with all (married) children. But then one of those children moved to Germany and one moved back to Belgium.  And we started talking and it felt so natural and spontaneous. It was quite fun to connect and get to know each other better.  I know my German relatives a bit better but haven't been as close in touch as in my early childhood and B from Canada , I still only knew a few hours in real life. 

We were treated to a very typical German meal with lots of talking, after which we went to check out the Aachener Christmas market together.  We 

We asked someone to take a picture of us so we didn't need to rely on a selfy but the result is so funny with our little heads positioned in the bottom of the picture. So funny, we giggled a lot after thanking our volunteer photographer

I also profited to go and check out the kid's carroussel where I had another fun but very brief reunion with our Sharm-Al - Sheikh dive instructor...who runs kid's carrousels in the winter season in Germany and has a fixed spot at the Aachener Christmas Market. It had been since 2017 since we had seen each other but he knew my name right away.  It was too busy though to have a real conversaiton. 

As Europeans we introduced B. to the concept of Gluhwhein.  They actually had a quite ok alcoholfree Gluhwein for me as BOB driver. 

After we had to say goodbye to our German relatives , I showed B another bit around to what I remembered from our family weekend in Aachen in 2023.  I profited to go back into the Dome and admire this gorgeous building once more. 

We strolled a little more but since the crowd had become considerably bigger and we started to get pushed into a flow, we called it a day and left for the drive back home around 4. But it was a great day to treasure!