Meet the Herkners

For the next year, I'll be living with the Herkner family, working as their au pair. The parents are Irmgard and Harald. Irmgard is a lung specialist, and Harald an ER doctor...AND they're raising three very active boys!

Introducing (top photo, from left to right):

Vinzenz (Vinz, or Vinzi), 6

Laurence (Lolo), 11

Felix, 13

The next two pictures are of Vinzenz, on the way to school, and then climbing up the doorway of course!

Laurence is in the bottom photo.

We're following the Austrian Au Pair contract, which allows up to twenty hours of work per week. My morning schedule includes: setting the table for breakfast, preparing snacks for the boys, and walking the youngest, Vinzenz, to first grade at around 7:30. I have the rest of the morning to myself until I go back to pick up Vinzenz at noon, then we come home and I cook lunch for the boys. Lolo and Felix usually come home around 2, which is when we all sit down and have lunch together. Irmgard comes home at three. So, that's it! I think it's going to be a pretty great gig!

I'm getting along really well with all three of the boys so far. I mostly speak English with them, and they speak extremely well. In fact, Felix and Laurence prefer to speak in English with me. Even little Vinz can get by, though I think he still prefers to speak in German. He'll often mix the two languages and say a German word with an American accent, which I think is so cute! Today, I helped Laurence and Felix with their English homework, and then I taught them some tongue-twisters. "Red leather yellow leather" was the toughest for them, I think!