TIL that refers specifically to feelings that would cause laughing. Took me a while to get your pun, also because (to this dutchman) aachen is two sounds removed from lachen and not one like it might be for a german (where they hardly differentiate between short a and long aa).

I find it hard to describe feelings (in any language), maybe "shocking" is a better word than exhilarating? But that sounds more negative than I mean it. The german word that comes to mind (I hardly speak german so this might be far off) is aufregend which dict.cc says translates to both shocking and thrilling, maybe that's a better description because it's not specifically about being happy or scared but rather a neutral energetic feeling? "Getting worked up" might be a translation of aufregen but it doesn't sound like what an english speaker would say in this situation due to connotation.