Ever since our twins were babies we’ve tried to do as much together as a family as we can. My husband had just started as an attending at a busy hospital when our guys were born and after years of residency and med school it now meant even more call, more presentations, and more responsibilities away from home making our at-home hours together all the more precious. Over the years even our trips have been to keep our family together and it has sometimes meant we have visited places over breaks that aren’t our first choices when breaks line up with conferences. And we’ve gotten really good at traveling together. But this year our twins had different breaks with high school for the very first time. One ended up being able to go with my husband while he worked in Tucson Arizona (which with its Dark sky turned out perfectly for this son who is into all things space right now). And so I told my other teenage son maybe he could find something for his break for us to do and somehow that ended up with me taking him to Frankfurt Germany.
How did we choose Frankfurt Germany for a mother/son trip?
Our Frankfurt trip happened all because of European football. My son is obsessed with all things soccer. When my son first started to think of Europe, I got excited and hoped maybe we’d go shopping together in Paris or London. But unfortunately the team he wanted to see from England was not playing during his break. He found a Bayern Munich vs Cologne Game that played in Munich the night before we would have to leave back to Seattle if we went on a Europe trip. Seattle did not have a direct flight to Munich for this break but we have used the Seattle to Frankfurt route before. We looked up our Alaska Mileage Plan points and found we had enough to fly return with Condor Airlines. We didn’t know much about Condor Airlines but decided we might as well try. You can hear more about our experience with Condor Airlines here. So we ended up with two nights in Frankfurt, two nights in Munich and one night back at the Frankfurt Airport for a total of 5 hotel nights in Germany.
Can you do a five night trip to Germany and still see enough?
My son thought we’d need a longer time for this trip, but I reminded him I’m his mom and not his best friends. A five night trip as the first trip of a lone grown up traveling with a teen is good for being not too stressful too. We didn’t do a lot of planning except for buying our train tickets and football match ticket before we left. We couldn’t get tickets through the Bayern Munich site, but my son asked a German exchange student at his school how they got tickets and they told us to use Stubhub. And yes, we were able to see a lot. We did our planning on the airplane (we bought a Rick Steves guide last minute before we left) and also on our first day in Frankfurt over dinner in the lounge at our hotel. Our first two nights were at the Westin Grand Frankfurt and it was easy to get to from the airport and only a few minutes from the train station. I have platinum status at Marriott hotels with my credit card so we had lounge and breakfast privileges. The lounge was so helpful with drinks and snacks pretty much all day and even dinner so I think staying here ultimately saved us money.
And the benefits to traveling with a teenager?
I really loved this trip because we had a chance to just sit in the same space sometimes and we don’t always get to do this in our busy day to day lives. My son is a twin and we have done so much together as a family, this was a good way to get to know him as an individual too. He was so helpful in planning and helping choose routes, deciding where we would eat or even helping me with my bags. I don’t think I ever would have traveled for a football game otherwise and it will be a memory I have for a lifetime. So even though it might have been a bit of a dream trip for him it was a million times that for me. We always talk about what kids will get out of trips, but this one was really one for my heart and we have so little time in this teenage era, I’d recommend this or just any other trip our kids dream up (you want to go to the store? I’m in! Take a class together? I’m in! Drive you to the moon? Let’s figure out a way. I’m in.). It all goes by way too quickly.
Terumi Pong is a Seattle-based family travel writer and mom of twin teenage boys. She loves coffee and pastries, shopping local and looking for greener ways to live. She is also known as Scout’s mom (Scout is a 5ish pound little black yorkie-poo)
3 thoughts on “The time I took my teenage son to Frankfurt Germany by myself”
Comments are closed.