Survivors of the Mumbai terrorist attacks are sharing their stories about what it was like to be inside the siege.

Marilyn and Joe Ernstein tape their vacations for fun, but their stay at Mumbai's Taj Mahal hotel was different.

"I had just fallen asleep," recalled Marilyn Ernstein. "I woke up to explosions and gunshots and then it just seemed to go on. It sounded like they were firing right outside our room: boom, boom, boom."

She huddled with her husband for 12 hours, unable to shut out the gunfire and screams. The couple decided to videotape their escape.

"I just wanted to see my kids again and I was afraid we wouldn't get out," Marilyn said.

The two made it out, with Marilyn clutching Nicholas Sparks' novel, "The Lucky One."

The Ernsteins taped their flight from the Taj Mahal Hotel.

Michael and Anjali Pollack were in the Taj Mahal hotel's bar when they heard gunshots.

"The staff then hid us in a closet in kitchen," Micahel Pollack recalled. "When terrorists came to bang on door, [the staff] barricaded it. Pollack said the staff was fearless, telling the terrorists, in Hindi, 'Don't' worry. Nobody in there.'"

The staff later moved them to a room with about 200 other people, Pollack recalled.

"They tried to organize an evacuation and the terrorists got wind of the evacuation and the first people to get evacuated all got killed," said Michael Pollack.

As the couple moved back for cover, they decided to split up, hoping to increase the chance one would make it out alive.

"I did it for my kids," said Angali Pollack. "That's all I can say, you know? We did what we had to do. In that room, I was so sure I wasn't coming back and I just hoped he'd come back for the kids because I didn't think we were both going to get out of there."

The two did make it, arriving back in the U.S. late Sunday night.