German-ing it up

Well, a few days before we went to Austria, my mom bought my Rosetta Stone - German, which I wanted for Christmas / to learn some German before the trip. I only had maybe 4 days before we left, so I didn't really get very far. I could say "Das ist meine Schwester" and"Die Katze ist auf Dem Fernseher," but not anything super useful. Fortunately they speak English there =D But anyways, I like Rosetta Stone, but I definitely miss learning rules. I can parrot back phrases that it gives me, but I can't create my own sentence because who knows how to put a sentence together. For example, the definite article changes depending on...I don't even know. You might use "der" in one sentence, but "dem" in another and I really don't know why. And sometimes I really don't know what the pictures were showing. There was a whole segment with people hugging or just being close together with phrases such as "Ich liebe meine Schwester" and "Ich liebe meinen Großvater" and I really didn't know if it meant hug or what until I went to Austria and there was an ad in the metro with that word and I finally understood that it meant love! But yeah, I reeeeeeally miss grammatical rules and direct translations, but I like it. I'll let you know how I feel after I finish Level 1 (I just finished Unit 2 (out of four) in Level 1).