Off to Germany this week!

This week, Tracie and I are headed to Germany for our second visit! Why? To visit Tracie's cousin Casey, her husband Rick (who's in the Air Force) and their three kids. We went last year and had a great time, so we're going back. Also, we've really missed them since they've been stationed overseas.

The big difference with our trip this year is that I work for an airline and we'll be traveling using employee flight benefits. That means that it's really cheap for us to fly, but we have to travel standby; this is known as non-revenue travel, or non-rev. Last year, we didn't have those benefits, so we paid a bunch of money for the privilege of being crammed into little seats on a plane for many hours.

Flying standby means that taking the most direct route is often not the best idea. Instead of just going from Phoenix to Frankfurt via Philadelphia, our journey is going to span two days and involved an overnight stay in Boston before going to Philly and then Frankfurt. At least, that's the plan. If flights get full, we may change our plans again! You have to be flexible and often quite patient when you non-rev.

While we're in Germany, we'll probably spend most of our time with the family at their house, but we're planning to take a few days for all of us to drive over to Paris. I've never been to Paris, so I'm happy to see anything there, but if I had to pick one landmark, it would have to be the Eiffel Tower.

We're nearly all packed, so it's time to finish last minute stuff. Look for pics and blog posts to come!