Vienna Goodbyes

This is going to be a hard post to write.  There's just too much to say and I'm already daunted by the idea of trying to articulate even a small portion of the emotions wrapped up into moving. I guess that's because it's certainly more than just the shipping of our stuff from one place to another.  It's saying goodbyes to sweet friendships, familiar places, a settled rhythm of life, broken hopes and dreams and to a city that we've really grown to love over the past 3 years.

We made a difficult decision to leave our kids back in the States with family.  On one hand, we really wanted to bring them to say Goodbyes properly.  On the other hand, we don't have a  trust fund with which to whisk our kids around the world on whims and we knew the idea of packing up our apartment in two weeks with kids under foot would be very difficult so the decision was sort of made for us.  In retrospect, this was a really great thing - despite our misgivings.

Right away we were able to jump into the logistics of prepping for the move.  This involved a lot of cleaning/sorting and organizing.  This was really the easy portion of our trip.  The hard part was the emotional goodbyes.  Every night (and many afternoons & mornings) were busy getting together with friends - taking the time to express our gratitude and thankfulness for their presence in our lives.  How blessed are we to have been surrounded by so many friends and neighbors?!   I'll spare you the Humble Brag, but needless to say we were deeply touched by the sincere words and affections which were piled on us. It was really too much to hear at times and I'm so thankful that God allowed us the opportunity to give and receive these tender emotions and thanks.

a tiny subset of goodbyes

One of the highlights of our time was attending a going away party for Dan by his amateur choir.  Over the last few years, I've had limited access to them, but always enjoyed the contact I had. Historically, Dan would come home from rehearsals and give me the rundown on people's lives, so in a way, I feel like I already knew many of them more personally than they anticipated.  We went to a restaurant that the choir frequents often and we all closed the place out - as only Europeans can do!  There was group singing (it is a choir!), a lot of laughing and sweet goodbyes.  It made me regret that I was unable to be more a part of it in the past.  A wonderful group of people and I'm so blessed to have been so welcomed by them.

Here are two "videos" of them singing that night.  This one is called "Until We Meet Again" and it's in English.

Please forgive the filming... I didn't record this for the visual, but the audio. It was a touching moment and felt that I was infringing on it a little by recording people, so did that once around and switched to candle :)

This is another song they performed too - Dan's singing lead on "Ain't Got Time To Die"

Can't say enough about how much this evening meant to us.  

The singing, the conversation, the laughing are all deeply ingrained in our hearts.

We also made a point of it to enjoy our visit as tourists.  We filled every moment with work so we could take Sunday off and relax without guilt. And the last 2 days - after our apartment was packed up, we were officially tourists.  With the stress of packing up behind us, we were able to visit an art museum and linger over beauty and quiet. And since we were there just before Easter, we swung by the beautiful Easter Market.

And on a lighter side note... I learned an important life lesson - If you ask someone at a bar at 3am to take your picture, the chances are the pictures will be out-of-focus & uncentered.  Hugs to our tipsy photographer :)