Europa Park - Silver Star & a few thousand kids

Today we went with our friends Clement & Petra and the real reasons for the trip, their niece & nephew from the USA, to Europa Park. This is Europe's main theme park and is now in its 32nd year, the largest and newest ride being the Silver Star, sponsored by Mercedes Benz. This was handy as during the queue (surprisingly short - we got lucky) we got see the F1 qualifing for the Hungarian Grand Prix, though missing the Alonso/Hamilton incident. Claire is not a big fan of roller coasters but she managed all except the Silver Star. Of course, it's holiday season across Europe so the park was busy but we managed (by getting up at 7.00) to be there as the doors opened and that enabled us to get in a lot of rides before 11.00. My personal scariest ride was the Russian (the park is plit into "country" zones) with a wild descent completed facing backwards!