Winter home exchange put on ice

With two home exchanges set up for the spring and summer, I still wanted to find something for the winter. I had been in contact with a family from Norway who were looking for a long term exchange, and while we had traded a few emails back and forth, they let me know that they had 2 offers that they were considering, ours and one from Australia. We loved the pictures of their house, and we wanted to be in Scandinavia so their location was perfect. Of course, I don't know a thing about Norway, but I discovered that their house is in western Norway which is where the famous fjords are located. It is absolutely gorgeous in western Norway and there is snow there for Sam! At first, they seemed quite interested and had lots of questions, but then their messages came less and less often, and it seemed as though they were favoring the other offer. We hoped that they would decide to exchange with us, and I tried not to get my hopes up, but I couldn't help it. When we hadn't heard from them in over a week, Jon said that we might as well entertain other offers if they come our way (even though I had turned someone down in Denmark already!). I resigned myself to the fact that Norway wasn't going to work out, and hoped to get an offer. That's when we heard from the family in Germany, and that turned out to be a disaster.