German parades ROCK!

Sunday we were trying to decide what to do for the day and Kenny had read in the paper that our local Ramstein fire station was having an open house. We headed over there around 1:30 and it was really cool for the boys. You could tour the station and the trucks were parked out front and were just open for all the kids to check out. Again, it was very unlike anything that would happen in the States in that there was NO ONE supervising or watching the trucks. You could hop in and out at will, honk the horns, talk over the loudspeaker, push any button, open all the cabinets in the back parts of the rescue vans. I kept looking over my shoulder to look for someone running over yelling at us, but turns out all the firemen were in the parade. At around 2:00 we heard some bands and fire truck sirens heading our way. It was mostly the firemen marching, a couple of bands and some old and new fire trucks. In parades back home I'm used to people throwing candy out to the kids, but there'd be none of that in this parade. Toward the end, here came a truck pulling a tank that I'm assuming is usually filled with water, but noooo....today it's filled with beer that the firemen use to fill cups with and pass out to the crowd. Screw the kids, we got beer!

The beer truck:

I was sure praying that our house wouldn't catch on fire on Sunday because after the parade ALL of the firemen were clustered around the beer wagon behind the station and I'm not confident they'd be at the top of their game if the bell rang.