By the time our friends arrived the kids were indeed fast asleep, this gave us some nice catch up time over a few drinks. I was participating in sober October up to this point but it's not every day you get to hang out with friends in another country and try the gin made in their local town.

Time flew by and it was almost 2.30am by the time our 'quick drink' was over. Thankfully we didn't have too early a start but the kids were very excited to have other children to play with. Robert and Finlay went to nursery together but that was quite a few years ago so they don't really remember each other but that doesn't stop them hitting it off straight away. They also brought Peaches, their family dog along who was very friendly and loved playing with the kids.

We were at Charlottenhöhle which is the site of a cave with an interesting history. We were one of the last tours of the year as from November to March the cave is closed as its where the local bats hibernate. It was definitely handy being with German speakers as the tour was all in the local language. I don't think we'd really considered that as usually on our travels there is the option for the English tour but we were given a leaflet to follow along and Laura was very good at translating the highlights for the kids.

The cave used to be home to the local bears and was also used as a place to throw the bones of dead animals. Only in the last chamber were we allowed to take photos and they did have a good example of a stalagtite which they nicknamed the leaning tower of pisa.

After the cave there was a small museum where the kids mainly played in a small den but they had a few examples of some of the bones and findings from the local area.

The area also had a small play park in a forest setting so other than a quick 10 mins where we got the kids to have lunch they spent the next 3hrs happily running around either making dens, finding sticks or playing with Peaches.

Laura suggested we should try the Zwiebolkuchen, it was a quiche like dish with cheese, onion and bacon. It was really tasty to us foreigners even though Laura said it wasn't a good example of one. Al then got a couple of the zwetschgenkuchen for us to try which was a damson cake with cream, again rather tasty.

It was time to say our goodbyes but perhaps not for too long as tomorrow they are having a Halloween party which we've been invited to and the kids are extremely excited about the idea so we've said we'll see how our day in Stuttgart pans out and if we've got time it would be a lovely detour.

It takes a couple of hours before we're in Stuttgart. We've parked up in a secluded dead end road next to the river and a local play park. Liliya fell asleep about 10 mins before we parked up and thankfully she'd been snacking a fair bit so decided we'd just carry her straight to bed rather than wake her for food. Robert wasn't too hungry either so we decided to keep it simple and we all just had one of the emergency pot noodles for tea finished off with Robert and I sharing a tin of rice pudding.

With Robert in bed and sober October now over I joined Al in trying out the local Radler beers. He'd chosen a couple of award winners, in our opinion the silver was definitely better than the gold.

The next morning we headed to the Mercedes Benz museum. Last night we'd found parking right outside but our van was too big so instead of risk waking up with a ticket we'd parked further away but this meant we had to use the local transport to get there, as often is the case with public transport abroad it was very straightforward and easy to get there.

Stuttgart is well known for its car museums and we'd had a choice of this or the porsche museum but online the MB museum had much better reviews. The museum building itself is unique and once inside you take a lift to the top then the floors are curved like a huge spiral staircase.

Each level takes on a different topic along with a timeline of many inventions contributing to the technology of cars today and potential for the future. The kids enjoyed learning about how cars are designed and for once this trip got the opportunity to use their cameras. There weren't many interactive areas but they did enjoy pretending to change the tyres on a race car.

After the museum we caught a bus then tram into the centre of Stuttgart for a little walk around. The tourist office gave us a few of suggestions on where we could spend a couple of hours and the children chose to go to the kids construction area of a museum.

En route we passed a huge queue and wondered what was going on, turns out it was for a cookie store, honestly it was huge so people really must think they are worth it to queue for so long. In the kids construction area they got to be creative and Robert built himself a house whilst Liliya enjoyed cycling around transporting foam bricks.

We were doing OK for time so let the kids know if they wanted to leave now we'd have time to meet our friends again and go to their party.

As we headed back to the underground we passed a bakery and Finlay had told Robert he must try a Franzbrotchen, a cinnamon type pastry. He agreed that it was very tasty indeed.

We also got stopped by a couple of guys who told us they were in a band and touring from Estonia. They had some CDs they were selling, one more rock style, the other metal, the boys opted for the metal version. Unfortunately (or not for me) we don't have a CD player in the moho so we won't actually be able to hear if it's any good until we return back to the UK.

Just before we got back to the van the kids were eager to show me a really cool thing they had found in the park next door.

We then made our way to Tubingen where our friends lived which was just over an hour away, the kids decided to make loom band bracelets as gifts for the boys and I'm hoping they will like the lemon cake I picked up in the bakery.

The kids were so excited when we arrived as the house was all decorated, Robert got to borrow a spooky costume and I did some face painting for Liliya.

Despite the language barriers we barely saw our kids for the next couple of hours as they were off having fun and making new friends. Laura and John's friends were wonderful making us feel very welcome in the group and chatting to us in English since my German doesn't go further than a few words. I got to enjoy a couple more gins with Laura, try some yummy foods, the kids got spoilt rotten with a goodie bag to take away so they were happy that the boys came knocking to trick and treat at our motorhome.

We've now got a couple of hours driving this evening then another hour tomorrow morning to revisit the Ironworks.