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On 3rd July we caught a flight to Paris for our four week stay in the Belgian Ardennes region. The flight went more smoothly than feared, as Juultje slept a reasonable amount and essentially only cried on take-off and landing. Piet was somewhat disappointed with Air France's inflight entertainment program, as some kids cartoon had not been dubbed into English and only Emma still has an interest in the Frozen movie. From Paris it was a three hour drive to the cottage we had rented near the French border. We arrived around 11am and were welcomed by oma Bep, tante Hanna and cousins Thirza and Laure, who had arrived the previous day from the Netherlands. We waved tante Hanna and the cousins goodbye the next day in order to drop off the cousins in Paris for a two week camp in the Alps.
On Monday, oma Bep was keen to look after Juultje, who she had not seen for 18 months, and we took the kids to the citadel in Dinant overlooking the Meuse. It was a relatively modern fort, used as recently as 1914. Piet and Emma were not interested in the guided tour, which presumably was targetting WW I history buffs, as GPS grid references were read out, so we left quickly for some fries and a 45 minutes drive back to the cottage.
The next day oma looked after Juultje again and we went to the caves near Han, a major tourist attraction. We took an old tramway, which in Belgium was also used rurally, for a short ride to the caves, which are expansive and impressive. After the 90 minutes tour, we had fries again and played in the nearby playground before continuing with a safari by truck. This made the day a bit too long, but Piet and Emma loved the animals, which all once upon a time roamed freely in the region, like boars and bears.
We went to an aerospace museum. Piet and Emma were enthusiastic about the planets exhibited on a certain scale outside and also enjoyed the moonwalk simulation, but the audio tour was a waste of time - it rattled off many Belgian achievements in space and even mentioned when Belgium won the Eurovision song festival. After that the kids were no longer interested in the artifacts exhibited and wanted to go home to Juultje (and oma).
The next day we stayed home and played the old Dutch boardgame Ganzenbord. We had lunch in a little cafe at walking distance. Emma and Piet enjoyed their ice creams. Later that week, it got hot. Oma looked after Piet and Emma, while their parents took Juultje on a walk through the Ardennes forest.
