Final week in Holland - Day 6

Final week in Holland - Day 6, A final visit with Ewout's parents was the order of the day. We spent some wonderful hours with Mum and Dad, helping Dad pick berries in his verdant vege garden and sharing lunch together. We are very thankful that we could have this time together and it will be fondly remembered for years to come. This was in a sense the highlight of our trip, being reunited with family and being so blessed by being together.

In the evening we had a final meal with Tante Aleid and Oom Gerrit, who have been such a help to us during our stay - feeding us delicious meals and providing so many blessings from preparing our holiday home to abundant treats for the children and waiting in doctor's waiting rooms with us!  Their home has always been open to us and they have made us feel more than welcome each time.

 While Mum and Dad caught up with Opa and Oma, the children wandered down to the local "Kinder Boederij" to check out the latest additions.

Checking out the progress of the vege garden and getting more helpful tips from Dad.

Sharing precious moments with Ewout's parents

Relaxing together after another delicious meal.  (We are sure we have all gained weight during our stay due to Tante Aleid's great culinary skills and the abundance of fantastic food!😋)

Final week Holland - Day 5.

Final week Holland - Day 5. Amsterdam! The city of bikes, canals, wonderful narrow and tall houses and lots and lots of people. For our final excursion we headed off to Amsterdam, primarily to go to the Rijksmuseum so the children could experience viewing some of the wonderful paintings from the grand old masters of dutch art, notably Rembrant, Johannes Vermeer, Van Gogh, with the Naval scenes by William van der Velde of particular interest to the boys. Even the still life paintings were remarkable and the paintings of people with the play of light and color made them fascinating to view. We were in awe of the talents/skills the painters had.  There were helpful cards full of information to help us understand what to look for and the symbolism involved.

Following the museum we took a canal tour of the city which was a very calm and relaxing way to view the highlights of Amsterdam without being assailed by hordes of people, or having to put up with (it seemed like) every second shop billowing out clouds of marijuana smoke or selling drug paraphernalia.

Amsterdam is a beautiful city with a rich heritage, and the flowers, multitudes of bikes parked up at every conceivable spot and the row houses - some of which were on quite a lean(!)  made it a most interesting visit.

Wonderful sights to see walking down the streets of Amsterdam

Just a few of the amazing paintings on display, most notably the Night Watch by Rembrant.

Olivia in front of a painting she particularly liked.
(She has lost yet another tooth - I think she has left them all over Europe!😁)






There were a number of naval battle scenes by William van der Velde, this was an amazing model of one of the ships depicted.

All set to go on our boat tour. 

It was a bit cooler today which made for a change to the heat we have been having.

Cruising through the canals was definitely the most relaxing way to enjoy the beautiful city, the narrow buildings were so delightfully "Amsterdam" some dating back to the 1500's!!  You can tell in which era each building went up by the type of gable it has (ie stepped, bell shaped, straight...).

Final week Holland - Day 4

Final week Holland - Day 4  Biking was the order of the day at the National Park De Hoge Veluwe, a Dutch national park in the province of Gelderland, approximately 55 square kilometers in area, consisting of heathlands, sand dunes, and woodlands. We made use of some of the 1800 white bikes which are available to use for those with entrance to the park, and with the sun shining, a breeze in our face and with our bunch of eager cyclists we had a majestic day cruising on exceptionally well made bike paths. Even Olivia manged to bike two thirds of the day which was fantastic.
At the end of the day we went to my brother's place for dinner, it was a pleasant time with Tim and Leona and Benjamin and Noemi, we hope that we can meet again soon, maybe in NZ!  Tim has been so fantastic in helping arrange the logistics of our trip.

Wonderful cycle tracks and beautiful scenery

Interesting places to stop off and have a break

Just a few bikes to choose from!!!

Farewell dinner with the Aarsens in Goor

Final week in Holland - Day 2 & 3

Final week in Holland - Day 2 & 3 On Saturday, much to the delight of the children, Louise's family in Lochem treated us to a day at Hellendoorn fun park. There were lots of screams of delight (and at times terror!) as we made our way round the park not just once but twice! Josiah also managed every ride with his sore shoulder, the doctor did say to keep moving it!  Louise's cousin Judith and her husband Florins with their son Ward were our hosts for the day and they made sure that we were all well catered for. We ended the day with a meal with the family in Lochem and due to the heat (28deg) we ended the day with a water-fight!  A very enjoyable and memorable day.

Today we went to church with Louise's Auntie and Uncle and then had my sister and brother-in-law over for the afternoon.  We went to a neat little water park/play area over the road for the children and had a lovely time catching up and then all too soon the time came to bid them farewell 'till we meet again, sometime again in the future, how long away only the Lord knows, hopefully sooner than later :-)

Just a handful of cool rides at Hellendoorn, we all really enjoyed the day (although some of the rides did leave the adults somewhat queasy 😵😜.  We looked forward to the water rides in particular as they were a relief from the heat of the day.  One great thing about the park was that children of all ages were catered for.

Enjoying fun times with cousins after dinner, the weather has been 5 to 7 deg warmer than usual, not that we are complaining!

Chilling out with Jackie and Albert in the sun while the children make the most of the activities (they think we should put a 'ball pit' in at home 😏😆). 

Back to Holland - Day 1

Back to Holland - Day 1, After 5 weeks touring around Europe we have returned to Nederland for the final week of our holiday. We returned yesterday to a sweltering 28 deg temperature, which in of itself is wonderful, but when the air-con in the van has clapped out - it did become somewhat hot!!
Louise's Auntie had dinner all sorted on our arrival, much to our relief!!

Today was the first day that we have had rain on our holiday!! Thankfully it was a planned 'quiet' day, some secondhand shopping was on order and a wonderful dinner with my parents at a pancake restaurant in Ruurlo, It was good retelling stories from our trip, and it made us realize how blest we have been and how much we have done over the past 5 weeks.  One item of concern as I type this blog post is that Josiah had a bit of a fall after we had been at the restaurant and is now at the doctors with Louise and Tante Aleid to get his shoulder checked out....update on Josiah,  his collar bone is not broken but badly sprained/bruised - for that we give thanks!

Our first day of rain, the main street on Lochem was decorated with umbrellas, not sure why - but we thought it very appropriate.

Second hand shopping bliss, yes some bargains were found - but not the hats!!

Absolutely fantastic pancakes, definitely some new topping combinations to try out when we get home.

London - Day 6,

London - Day 6  We decided to take a double decker bus this morning as we had promised the younger children this would be possible in London (of course!)  We have never seen so many!  It was easy with our oyster travel cards and we took a bus to the Imperial War Museum.  As we have found out, the British do museums well and thankfully most of them are also free😉.  This visit was notable particularly for the displays on World War 1: the trenches, the difficulties the soldiers faced on having to live and fight in such a manner and the events which led up to WW1.   Louise also took time to take the three older children though an exhibition on the holocaust, which re-enforced some of the things they covered while reading about Corrie ten Boom and was very sobering. 

After the visit to the museum we ditched the bus and took the tube to the Lyceum Theater to watch The Lion King musical.  We were enthralled for the full 2 1/2 hours!  The music, colour, lighting, design, humour, props, puppetry and costumes were stunning! This was the highlight of highlights of our visit to London and a wonderful way to finish our visit.

Grins of delight, a dream come true, especially getting the front row seat at the top of the double decker bus - you feel on top of the world!  We are in awe of the bus drivers and how they manage on the busy roads weaving in and out like they do.

The Imperial war museum.

A Lancaster bomber, a 2 man mini sub and a V2 missile, just a few of the exhibits on display.

This boat was of particular interest after having watched the movie Dunkirk with the older lads not so long ago.  It is a 14ft open-topped fishing boat called Tamzine which was the smallest boat to take part in the huge rescue effort to save soldiers trapped on the Dunkirk beaches in 1940.

The Lion King - the costumes, music and choreography were amazing.  The stage sets were majorly impressive, and transitioned throughout the musical seamlessly.