Remembering 9/11 with a Trip to National September 11 Memorial and Museum [PHOTOS]

Every American needs to see this place, it's beautiful.

My  husband and I took a trip to New York City earlier this year. I lived there five years ago and hubby visited constantly growing up, but we had never experienced the city together. It was fun sharing our stories and favorite hangout spots.

Of course, we dedicated a day to the September 11 Memorial and Museum. Which was incredible.

We didn't know what to expect getting off the subway, but when we came upon the reflection pools, the mood changed entirely. The city is eerily quiet around Ground Zero, as if setting the stage for the experience you are about to encounter. An experience you will never forget.

We walked around the pools, taking in all of the names listed and coming upon white roses every so often. Roses that have been placed in remembrance of those lost 14 years ago.

I stopped by one of the pools, standing close to its edge. I looked straight up into the sky, trying my best to envision the massive skyscrapers that once stood there. I never got to see those buildings before they were gone.

I also tried to envision what that day was like 14 years ago. If you close your eyes, you can almost hear the faint sounds of sirens. Not even five minutes in and I was already trying to fight back tears.

We purchased our tickets and went inside.

Immediately you start descending into the ground. That's the thing, the entire museum is underground. Insane, right?

This is the first thing you see.

The wall is the dam that holds back the Hudson River. Imagine for a second if that wall had been compromised... The entire southern tip of Manhattan would have flooded. What happened that day was beyond tragic, but it could have been so much worse.

At this point you realize that you are standing where the supports for the World Trade Center Towers once stood.

You wander through thousands of exhibits. You see firetrucks covered in ash and debris, pieces of the buildings that have been marked with a plaque stating which floor and which tower the piece is from, there is even one single window pane that remained completely unbroken.

On the back wall of this first tower are uniforms. These are the uniforms worn by the Seals who found and killed Osama bin Laden.

You travel further into the earth.

As you walk down the stairs, you walk next to the very stairs that hundreds of people ran down, fleeing for their lives. The whole way you see this mural.

The blue tiles are comprised of children who were asked to paint them the color they remember the sky being the morning of September 11. The dark ones broke my heart.

As you continue to walk between the two towers, you walk into to separate rooms filled with every picture of every person who lost their life on that day.

Behind you sits the dedication plaque of the Twin Towers on April 4, 1975.

Then you round the corner and come into a complete, real-life timeline of everything that happened the morning of September 11.

You're walked through the city waking up, the planes being loaded with passengers, you even see footage of the terrorists going through security. Never have I been filled with such rage in my life.

You hear the 9-1-1 calls. You hear the voicemails left for loved ones by those in the buildings. You see parts of the planes from the point of impact. You see large shards of  glass that fell from the sky.

You. See. Everything.

And it's so real, you feel as though you are living through it all. And then you see the wall of televisions displaying the world wide coverage of the attacks. Above it is President George W. Bush's message to the nation and the world.

You then walk through the memorials that were set up for those who passed. The lasting image for me was the sky view of the towers crashing to the ground.

You need an entire day to walk through this memorial.

Anything and everything you could want to see or feel is there. Everything you couldn't imagine could have been preserved, is there.

It's absolutely unbelievable.

I took very few pictures because, honestly, there is just too much to behold. And taking pictures of hubby and I smiling in front of anything, especially the reflection pools seemed utterly disrespectful. After leaving, my husband and I took a long walk in silence. One look was all it took for us to understand what we had just experienced.

The September 11 Memorial and Museum is something every single American needs to see. You need to feel what happened that day to truly understand. You'll be filled with so many emotions... sadness, grief, anger, rage, pride, hope, and so on.

I will say that there is a video board that you can write messages on. Those messages are then displayed on a wall which has a giant map of the world. The message stands for a brief moment, then becomes a part of the world.

I wrote, "A moment in our life, forever in our hearts. Never forget."