We all went to Wellenberg today for some easy on the joints, water fun.  The forecast called for a hot day and we thought it would be a perfect treat for the afternoon.  The kids started online school two days ago and the learning curve has been steep.  There is a lot to learn about just navigating the site and how the whole online school thing works.  They needed a reward and we had been waiting for a warm day to try out what we thought was the pool.

This place is not just a pool and it is phenomenal.  For about $14 (family ticket), the four of us got three hours in this pool fairy land.  The actual complex was impressive itself with two gigantic swimming pools.  One of the pools that I actually got into was 100 meters long and made of stainless steel and it had diving boards.  Scott and the kids had fun jumping off of the boards trying to make the biggest splash.  The other gigantic pool was in the middle of a huge, grassy, park area complete with playground, sand volleyball and cute kiddy pool.

There were other pools too; another stainless steel pool that was comfortably heated and had a channel that you could walk through to inside the building where the water was hot tub temperature and colored lights gave it a nightclub feel.  I wandered into that hot tub area once and wandered right back out, it definitely had a bit of a club scene feel with lots of teenage boys splashing and wrestling.  There was another large warm indoor pool and two indoor water slides.  The whole complex was nestled at the bottom of Laber Mountain and surrounded by pine trees.  There were lots of chairs and tables and perfect lawn areas to sit on and sunbathe or people watch, except by this time the weather had turned and it was chilly and cloudy.

What was even more amazing to this overprotective mother was the lack of rules (I saw three signs, no diving and no bottles at the large indoor pool and no dress shoes of some sort), lifeguards and modesty.  It was a bit of a shock to me to see kids sprinting around the pools over hard and slick tiles.  Nobody seemed to mind.  There were little kids with swim fins on jumping off of the diving boards and doggie paddling like crazy to get out of the way of the next jumper. There were no lifeguards to be seen.  We had been there for over an hour when I saw a man in a yellow, official looking shirt walking around one of the big pools and peering into it like he was checking for bodies.  I followed Ashley around on a tour of the complex and watched her try out the water slides.  I saw kids running up the wet stairs and being expelled from the slides at all different angles (headfirst!).  I even saw clumps of children spit from the mouth of the water slide all laughing and screaming with nary a lifeguard in sight and no concerned parents watching either (except for me).

The water slides were especially hard for me to watch.  I can’t help but thinking that the reason that it is taking Ashley so long to come out of the slide is because she is hung up inside of it somewhere.  I do reason with myself, someone would see her and help her or at least scream.  Ashley told me later that there were lights at the top of the waterslide that would turn green and that is when you knew you could go.  Of course she was telling me this because she was telling me that Grant wanted to go down the slide backwards so she was watching the light for him but the story was especially funny because she told him to go when the light was red.  Good Lord!

There were kids everywhere running and swimming and playing and not a lot of adult supervision, but everyone was happy. I did notice adults, especially the ones that were just nonchalantly changing right by the pool.  It didn’t bother me, it was just surprising.  I really did find all of these things to be only different from what I am used to, but in no way bad or wrong.  In fact, I think that today’s experience was just as refreshing as the giant 100 meter stainless steel swimming pool that I swam six chilly laps in.

http://www.wellenberg-oberammergau.de/