Our last week in Europe we spent enjoying family time in The Netherlands.  Both of Steve’s parents, Bert and Odile, are from the Netherlands and so they were excited to meet up with us there to show the grandkids around their country and introduce them to the many relatives.  My sisters-in-law Elanor and Carol, and their munchkin Felix also joined us for the week from Ontario, so it was super nice to have the Waslander clan together.   We celebrated two birthdays this past week, both Steve and Elanor’s (and cousin Rico’s), and it was fun to be together for those.

Bert and Odile each have six siblings so there were lots of relatives for the kids to meet, and although I’ve visited The Netherlands with Steve three times, there were many new faces for me as well.  Such friendly, happy and welcoming families on both sides. I know I have many faithful Dutch family readers of this blog, so I’ll give a big shout out to them all and say Hello!

We stayed together with Steve’s parents in a house in Schijndel near Den Bosch that they had swapped for their own house in Ottawa.  It was fun to be in a “real” and big house after so many months!  We got back into cooking dinners and cleaning up after ourselves… we have been spoiled for not having to do this for so long.

The week was quite relaxed with a mix of seeing The Netherlands sights and family time.  A few photo of family time at the house are here:

A Day in Amsterdam

Amsterdam is one of my favourite cities for wandering.  It’s such a beautiful and walkable city with its many canals and old architecture and so much to admire.  I’ve spent many days in Amsterdam in the past, but this time we only had one day, so we hit on the top sights and did a nice long walk through the old town.  We visited the Van Gogh Museum which I loved, but unfortunately it was so crowded, being peak tourist season.  We also took a really interesting canal boat tour and visited a few quirky museums:  the Cat Cabinet, the Cheese Museum and the Tulip Museum. We did a walk-by of the Anne Frank memorial and her house (now a museum) as a bit of education for the kids since I had assigned her book as “mandatory reading” to Zachary and “highly recommended” for Nicholas on this trip and they both had dutifully just read it.

Other Netherlands Sights

We kept very busy seeing the best-of within an hour or so of where we are staying – and in Netherlands terms, an hour takes you halfway across the country…. So different than Canada!  A favourite was the Kroller Muller museum which is an outdoor sculpture garden with a big indoor gallery as well, set in the the middle of a big forest with only bicycle or walking access.

We spent a day in the Den Haag area where Odile grew up and visited Madurodam with its massive sampling of miniturized landmark buildings from across the Netherlands.  It’s way more impressive than I expected and you have to see it to believe it as I’m not sure the photos do it justice.  We visited the beach too although the day was cool, a bit rainy and very windy, but according to Bert our experience was “very representative” of Dutch beach-going.  We also toured the Den Haag old town which shares the status of capital city of The Netherlands with Amsterdam, who knew!?

The Netherlands also has its share of castles with tumultuous histories and we visited one really interesting one near our house, Heeswijk castle, that was built in the 1400’s and was destroyed and rebuilt many times since.  Louis XIV even slept there once.

Family Reunions

We had two family reunions super well planned by Odile and Bert – one for the Stockmann’s (Odile’s family) and one for the Waslanders.  It was incredible to see so many of the family come out to spend the day together.  Each reunion had a scavenger hunt, a lunch and a boat tour which was a great way to have lots of time with everyone.

Other Dutch Fun

We have always been a big fan of Stroopwafels but were immensely impressed when we found out we could get them freshly made and dipped in chocolate!  The Den Bosch bosche bol covered in chocolate and filled with cream was also a big hit.

We tried to stay active for the week of course, but with so many family meals and desserts this week I think we all slowed down.  Even so, we still squeezed in a bit of soccer and a few runs.  The kids had a fun afternoon at a waterpark as well.

Up Next

Hard to believe we have just arrived at last country on our tour:  Peru.  We had a LONG set of flights to get here (Amsterdam –> London –> Miami –> Lima) making this the longest and most expensive journey in our tour, but all went smoothly including our stealth well-tuned family approach to making sure we get to carry on all of our bags. We are very much looking forward to exploring Peru and being joined by the Davies family in a few days!