oh, how wonderful, we could come and visit maya & miele again. it has been over a month since the last time we saw them, and they have grown a lot for this short period of time. but they were still super cute little fluff balls. and they have kept their playfulness too. so we had them chase sticks, strings, and toy mice all through the flat. but small kittens as they still are, they soon were exhausted and tired. then it was time to feed them. and after eating they were even more tired. so then came sleeping and cuddling time again. nina took miele to pet him, and i grabbed maya and put her on my lap. after a little purring they soon doze off and fell asleep. aaaw, they are so cute. we are really lucky to have such lovely neighbours.

one week after my dad's visit, my brother and his family came for a visit, to stay over the weekend. school is over, and since my nephew had excellent grades he wished for a visit to vienna and to the prater, a big open amusement park, on sunday. since my brother and his wife also had to fetch their new car from vienna, this was a perfect time for a visit to vienna. the weather was just right on this day. sunny, and maybe just a bit too hot. nonetheless my nephew was eager to try out a lot of attractions in the amusement park. so the adults split up, so each one of us gets their fair share of the... fun. nina (thankfully) volunteered for a roller coaster and a water slide ride. while the water slide looked like fun, the roller coaster definitely is nothing for me. nina and i had recently been watching the "wild mouse" from and with josef hader, so us and my nephew had a ride with that too; for this one i actually also volunteered. and i mean really voluntary. my brother decided to go for some sort of flying simulator, and my sister-in-law went for the ghost train. i chose some walking simulator through some kind of dinostopian park, but with elements of horror here and there. while to me it was mainly way too loud, to my nephew it must have been very scary, as he grabbed my hand and did not let go of it until we reached the exit again. not my pick or recommendation, but older kids might easily enjoy this, as partly it was really a nice reconstruction of how it would have looked like for the dinosaurs, if only one could skip those not really scary but just overly loud scare jump elements. nina, my nephew, and me then did another water slide based attraction. i must admit i got very dizzy one i came out of it again. all adults were pretty exhausted by the time we had done all those attractions, and i might even have forgotten a few to list here. my nephew on the other hand easily might have had some more, but they still had to fetch the new car and return home with two cars, so it was time to end the fun and go home. as soon as they had packed all their stuff into the car and had left for the motor highway and we had just reached a metro station, it start raining cats and cats. and some dogs too. perfect timing at the end of a lovely day with my brother's family.

for christmas i gave my father and his significant other vouchers for several activities in vienna as a present. one of those activities was a visit to the natural history museum in vienna, including a tour on the roof of the museum. all of us had not seen that before. but first was a tour through the really huge building. nina and i have been here recently to visit the special exhibition called "cat's cradle & lion's den" showing the influence of cats in different eras up to today; meow. besides all the exhibits shown, the building itself is also very impressive. since everything is so big and would consume so much time if you would really take your time to see every little piece in detail, we did not get very far on the floor we started. then we started the tour to the roof of the museum. the weather was perfect, and we were a group of about 15 people. our guide was leading us upstairs, and through hallways and corridors to doors, usually closed to visitors, we made our way up to the attic to get to the door that would lead us outside onto the roof. once through the door, we went along the edge of the building, where loads of statues were placed. from below you notice there are some, but not that it is so many. the guide picked out a few important ones to describe them in more detail; who they were, why they were important at the time of erecting this museum, and thus ended up here. from the top of the museum one has a magnificent view over the surrounding area, as it is amongst the higher buildings here in the centre of the capital. we also got a glimpse into office rooms that seem to be located up here. i imagine having my desk here, would be pretty nice, although i can imagine it is getting pretty hot up here in summer with all the tin that is covering the roof. also, the wind was pretty strong, so opening the window might result in strong gusts, possibly wreaking havoc on ones desk. unfortunately the tour ended way too fast, and we had to get into the building again. there we continued our tour through the museum and managed to look through a small portion of the exhibits on one half of the first floor. we had a coffee in the cafe inside the museum, and then we decided to call it a day. nina and i considered buying an annual season ticket, since it is a good price to have a closer look and taking more time. i wonder if one year is enough to get really every little detail in here. well, maybe we will find out. so, if you ever get a chance to take the roof top tour in the nhm, do it - it really is a great experience. and if you do not get a chance for the root top tour, go to the nhm anyways.