Emma's first overnight!

View of both the church and castle (and some apartments)

A little over a week ago we headed out for Emma's first weekend trip away from home. We decided to go to the small Swiss town of Sion, which is about 2.5 hours southwest from Zurich. Sion is located in a beautiful valley in the Alps that is rich in history with an old castle and church. The region is also home to terraced vineyard after vineyard. However, one of the main reasons we decided to go there was that it was hosting an outdoor Irish musical festival that weekend and the headliner was to be a favorite band of Steve's.

Exploring old town Sion

We took the train down on Saturday morning and spent the afternoon exploring the town, tasting wine, and enjoying dinner outside at a restaurant downtown. We headed back to the hotel for a quick break and to get Emma changed and ready to go before we headed to the concert. As we made our way back out we saw that the west end of the valley had become filled with dark clouds and we could see sheets of rain coming down. The wind had already picked up and although it felt good on the warm day, we knew it was not a good sign as we had Emma in her baby bjorn and just two umbrellas to cover us. We walked for about 10 minutes before deciding that it was a bad idea. Although Steve had been looking forward to the concert for awhile, we recognized at that moment that our lives had changed and wasn't always going to be about what we wanted to do anymore. Our best bet was to head back to the hotel and skip the outdoor festival. However, once we got back to the hotel and saw the wind and heavy rain coming down I think we were both secretly happy that we had little Emma to thank for keeping us dry. We've already endured more than our fair share of wet excursions during our time in Europe!

Unfortunately Sunday morning wasn't much better weatherwise and we decided to skip any explorations of the castle or hikes through the vineyards and instead headed back to Zurich a little earlier than planned. Nonetheless it was still a fun, relaxing weekend away with our little family! Emma did great sleeping at the hotel in her stroller bassinet and she is becoming a regular on the train. It probably helps that we've started becoming better at figuring our her patterns and how to keep her fairly content during the rides. Yet, I'm not going to lie, it is nice that having a small baby helps deter people from sitting too close to us and often leaves us with a few empty seats near us when the trains are not as full! I can't wait for future weekend trips as a family and watching Emma explore her first year all around Europe!

Old church on a hill

View of the castle

Emma and I enjoying the train ride home!