One should not be mislead by the title of this blog-entry: We did not visit Hugh Hefner's bunny ranch but spent the past days in the Sonnentherme Lutzmannsburg, a thermal spa for babies and children 120 km south east from Vienna. When Kerstin left for her maternity leave almost two years ago her colleagues gave her gift vouchers as farewell present and we now finally managed to use these vouchers. The mascot of the Sonnentherme - Sunny Bunny and he is omipresent both in the thermal spa as well as the attached Hotel Sonnenpark which we stayed in and which offers pretty much everything a family with children needs. pushchairs for in- and outdoors, numerous Bobby Cars and Bikes as well as large free space to use them, all sorts of baby food as well as a special buffet at breakfast, lunch and dinner for children, several playing areas for children of all ages and much much more.
Lets get ready to rumble!!
When we arrived on Tuesday afternoon Jakob was fresh and full of power as he was sleeping all the way from Vienna and after a few minutes of acclimatization and getting used to the many children dashing around on the Bobby Cars he soon got into it and was almost unstoppable. Wile speeding around and changing cars every so often he was greeting everyone and by Wednesday morning he was well known in the hotel - the waiters and waitresses, members of the Sunny Bunny Club as well as other hotel guests knew him already. He was nicknamed "Schumacher" for his speed on the cars and invited to the Bobby Car race on Friday - unfortunately though he has to miss that one.
Ready - steady - GO!!!!
Given the excitement within the hotel we almost had troubles to convince Jabob of coming to the thermal spa, but once he was there we could hardly keep him out of the water. At the begining he was playing with cups and borrowed watering cans or trucks but soon he ventured out to the water slides. There were 4 levels available in the spa with the first one, a tiny elefant-slide being an easy hurdle. Soon Markus was not needed to help up the stairs anymore and Jakob sometimes seemed dizzy from running back to the stairs and sliding down. Once that level was accomplished we moved on to a lightly bigger and longer slide, but Jakob did not like to slide down on his bum and turned head forward all the time. as a consequence he started off head forward already which did make a few people uncomfortable it seemed. But when they realised that a) he liked it and b) he was perfectly fine diving into the water at the bottom the nervousness disappeared.
It can't be fast enough...
After several runs on this slide we all had to climb up the long water slide which Jakob did not tackle on his own though. He headed down together with Markus or Kerstin and was laughing from start til finish and did not really want to stop. Even though it became quite obvious that Jakob is a wild one the two major water slides - Speedy and Twister - with 145 and 205 m length were left out this time and it was only Markus and Kerstin conquering the two beasts a few times. There should be a challenge for the nex visit for our junior.
Can't get enough!
With all the activity in the hotel and in the thermal spa it was amazing how much energy Jakob still had in the evening staying up a bit longer than usually at home. The nights however were great and he slept very well in his own bed and joined us only around 3am. Although we were quite active we also managed to relax these days and very much enjoyed the Sonnentherme and will definitely be coming back. Not only because Jakob has to conclude some unfinished business.
Jakob, Kerstin & Markus
