Our first days in Sicily.

We got to Italy on Wednesday evening.  Our flight went fine.  It was nice to be on a charter flight with all military members and their families.  The boys slept most of the time.  Tom and I had a hard time getting any sleep though, and Tom started not feeling very well.  We arrived in Italy and while we were waiting for all of our luggage in the terminal in Catania (not a military airport.), DJ decided to push open a door which was clearly blocked off and had a big green "emergency only" sign on it (granted, it was in Italian).  Alarms and lights went off everywhere.  These Italian security guys were rushing all over, getting on their radios to let everyone know it was a mistake.  DJ was pretty embarrassed.  The Paudler boys are here.

The first night we were here, we were exhausted and sleep deprived.  Tom had a fever and was throwing up.  I had to take care of Lincoln and Noah, who had a hard first night of adjusting to the new time zone (6 hour difference).  I had a little bit of a melt down in the middle of the night.  It was a tough first night.

On Friday morning at 7:30am, we started our Indoc classes.  It's a two week, all day course on base.  They teach us about the base, culture in Sicily, driving, housing, etc.  They provide child care for the kids.  The boys did great at the Youth Center and Child Development Center.

Today (Saturday) everyone is feeling healthy and better rested.  We rented a car and went exploring the island.  It's breathtaking.  I wish I had more time to post more pictures but the internet is soooo slow.  Here are a few for now.  We went to Acicostella, a quaint fishing village in Sicily.  We're considering living there.  We barely made it to the pizzaria before they closed at 1pm.  Yes, everything closes here at 1pm and then reopens at 4pm.  It's a ghost town between those hours.  Kind of crazy.  There are about 7 Acis and they are all fishing towns on the water.  We'd love to live in one of them if we can find the right place.  It would be about a 30 minute drive to work, but Tom thinks it's worth it.  Now that we're here, we both are convinced that we want to live in town.