Small Town Stay close to Hannover?
 

We will be visiting Germany for 4 weeks (end of May-end of June). Part of the trip (2 days or so) will be to visit my husband's elderly aunt (92 years young) in Hannover and also to visit Lehrte (where his mother was born).

We ideally would like to stay outside of Hannover but within easy reach for our visits. (We have a car.) Any recommendations? An online search brought up Pension "Zur Rotbuche" in the Tiergartenstrasse that sounds nice. A German-only language situation is no problem for us.

Many thanks in advance for the great help I always get in this forum!

You don't say what kinda of proximity to Hannover you prefer, but Hameln (Hamelin) would be a good place to stay. You either drive bit less than 1hr to Hannover or take the suburban train (2 trains/hr).
http://www.hameln.com/tourism/index.htm

Roughly the same distance away would be Celle.
Celle would have a slight advantage for driving to Lehrte.

If you are looking for a more rural/nature setting, try the Steinhuder Meer region. Just half an hour from Hannover.
http://www.steinhuder-meer.de/

Celle or Hildesheim if you want a town with something to do and something to see. Both are on the "right" side of Hannover also for Lehrte.

Thank you both for the quick responses. I think we would like to stay within maybe 1/2 hour of Hannover because we probably will be spending a lot of our time visiting with my husband's aunt but we won't be staying with her (she lives close to the middle of the city). Celle sounds like a very interesting prospect.

Celle is a beautiful historic town. However, driving time into downtown Hannover would be 45 minutes at least.

An alternative which is closer to Hannover and Lehrte might be Burgdorf. It is not as picturesque as Celle, but has a few half-timbered houses and two or three 3-star-hotels.

Thank you, Echnaton, I will definitely check it out.