Thermalbad Sole Uno

Ella ran out of suspects, so she made
a file on herself, too. It wasn't
intentional, but I think the messy
hair is a nice touch.

Sure enough, as soon as she woke up, Ella went to work building her spy tool arsenal.  She used the suction-cup crossbow and some string to make a repelling line, and she cut up cardboard to make some throwing discs for fighting off enemies. But really, she was hoping to get some better munitions. "Why don't we have any guns in this house," she grumbled.  I suggested that she use a straw to shoot wads of paper, but she wasn't impressed, and started to dream up alternative weapons.  I overheard her whisper something to Alex about poisoned cough drops. Beware.

Then Ella and Alex moved on to honing their reconnaissance skills. They grabbed Alex's little toy camera and used it to try to try to capture photos of Dennis and me, presumably to add to our dossiers. I had a lot of fun hiding my face from super-spy Alex, and as of right now, my file only has a picture of my butt.

I thought it was all fun and games until I heard Ella call out "Hey, Alex, I figured out where Mom's hid the Christmas presents!" and ran in there, to find Alex snapping photos of the Advent calendars.  It could have been much worse: the real presents were right next to them, in the wardrobe.

Alex requested this picture, at the
Hauptbahnhof. "That," he breathed, "is a
cool truck!"

As much fun as the kids were having, I was getting restless.  Today was absolutely gorgeous out. Happily, Susannah e-mailed with a suggestion: a trip to a kid-friendly thermal bath?  Ella and Alex were intrigued, and it was a great day for it.  Dennis still wasn't feeling well, but he was okay enough to take care of Joey, who, at age three, is still a year too young for the baths.

The thermal baths we had in mind were at Sole Uno, right on the Swiss-German border. They have a lot of fun features that we thought would keep our kids interested and happy enough to make it worth the hour-long commute and the entrance fee.

My great little travelers, setting out on another
adventure.

That was the hope, anyway. And there were a few other kids there, but all of the rest of the families had two adults to every child, instead of the other way around, as we were.

Being outnumbered by kids at a pool is usually not a problem, but at the Thermalbad it was tricky. The kids couldn't splash or scream, not even when they got swept away in the lazy river.  At one point Ella called out "So who wants to play Sharky Sharky?" Sorry, baby. Not here.

I worked hard to help my kids behave, but I couldn't do much about the other guests.  At one point, Ella called out, her voice carrying surprisingly well "Guess how many people I've seen kissing? Three! Three couples! Counting those people, right over there!" And then she pointed, with her full arm, at the amorous couple curled up about fifteen feet away. Despite her ambitions, I'm not sure Ella has a career in international intrigue in her future. Subtlety is not always her strong suit.

Ella's and Alex's favorite were the fire-and-ice pools, a 40-degree hot tub with red-lit water, and an adjacent 15-degree chilly pool that only a few adults (myself not included) gingerly eased themselves into.  Not Ella: she'd spring up from the hot pool and dive right into the icy water, and then plunge right back into the hot water, reveling in her own bravery.

There were some other fun parts. One chamber, the alpine waterfalls, had water cascade heavily and loudly from the ceiling bouncing off rocks before it poured down to the ground.  And, to my dismay, I discovered that the room was very aptly named: the water was ice cold.  Actually, seeing me cringe and wince after being doused in cold water was probably even more fun than the fire-and-ice pools.

But the best part about the fire-and-ice pools was that they were the only waters that weren't salty tasting. Caroline and Alex had a really hard time with the mineral-rich water, sputtering and spitting whenever their lips touched the water.  Not so great.

Nonetheless, Alex also really enjoyed the highly-saturated saltwater pool.  Underground, and dimly lit with red lights, the shallow pool was as salty as the dead sea.  Alex and I loved that super-buoyant feeling, and he paddled around, perfecting his starfish float.  Ella wasn't such a fan, though: the salt made her itchy.  When I told Ella that we were going to watch Caroline so that Susannah could have a turn in the salty water, she quipped "Huh. I didn't know you disliked her that much!"

Another feature that I thought Ella would really enjoy was the aromatic steam baths: three rooms, scented with lemon, mint, eucalyptus, and other yummy things. But it turned out that the kids had absolutely zero patience for sitting in a tiny, hot room, watching grownups sweat.  They pranced into each of the three steam rooms, inhaled deeply, and went right back out again, all done with that, barely letting the door close during their visits. None of the rooms were very steamy when we were through with them, I'm afraid.

Ah well.  So, clearly, our visit to Sole Uno wasn't as relaxing as it could have been, and we only stayed for about two hours, not really getting the value for all dollar.  But I'm glad we went, and I suspect that, of all the visitors that day, we had the most fun.