Back to the future

Hard to believe! Five months have passed and since last week we are back in Leipzig.

It took us 4-5 days to get used to it. The jet lag with unusual sleeping and waking times, midnight hunger attacks, and mood swings was quite pronounced. On the other hand, the reception and the subsequent Easter celebration with our family were very nice. It's simply the best to know that people are looking forward to your return and eagerly await you.

There's not much to report about the return flight. We took off from Auckland with Quatar Airways for a 17-hour flight to Doha (Quatar). We couldn't quite imagine how to survive this flight. But after 4 movies, 4 meals, and countless games of Solitaire, we made it. The second flight from Doha to Frankfurt felt like a short haul with 6.5 hours. We landed very happy and tired at 07:00 in the morning. But the fatigue had to wait because we were picked up by our son and his girlfriend. An incredibly moving moment! We spent a few more hours together, then it was time for the final leg to Leipzig by train. Being picked up at Leipzig Central Station has always been something very special for us as children. And so we hugged our closest family. Wonderful!!!

Back to the future - an exciting image for us. What will our future bring? We have plans, ideas, and visions. Now it's time to implement them after our extraordinary experiences in New Zealand. We're looking forward to it, but we also need time to process what we've experienced. But we're full of enthusiasm and want to make the most of it in every respect.

In the previous posts, we've reported a lot about our feelings and experiences. We've drawn conclusions and made summaries. The most important conclusion from five months of time out in the wild nature, under extraordinary conditions, and personal and physical challenges, however, relates to our partnership.

We've spent five months, 24 hours a day together. We've sweated, froze, were exhausted on the mountain, had blisters on our feet together. We enjoyed nature, sunrises and sunsets, storms, raging rivers, the first beer after a long hike, together. We set up and took down the tent day after day, made new plans and changed them, shared our experiences with other hikers. There were certainly frictions, but the biggest insight was to constantly get to know each other anew, discover strengths, accept supposed weaknesses, and create a magnificent mixture of togetherness in an extraordinary phase of our shared life.

For this, we can only say THANK YOU to each other. And we are confident that this experience will also be helpful to us in our future!

That's why it actually means:

Together back to the future.

This is our last post. Thank you for your accompanying and the many motivating comments. We look forward to many reunions. We wish all unknown readers all the best!!!!

Susi and Andreas or "The Koewis"