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We had a barbecue at our place, where we had a fixed coal or wood-fired barbecue. The kids liked eating at their own table, while adults ate at theirs. Maartje played with Emma's beany boos, while her brother and cousins played with a helicopter toy, which they tried to catch. Oma was happy to watch from the deck.
We could see Juultje develop during our holiday. One skill she suddenly mastered was making puzzles. Nearby in Vencimont we found a river suitable for building more dams and floating our boats made of milk bottles, sticks and grass, or just a stick. The rest of the family came over to hang around our place. Piet and Emma enjoyed getting familiar with all kinds of new mobile phone apps.
We had funny toetjes and tried shooting some group pictures, without much luck before the kids' patience ran out. We waved goodbye to our family from Zwolle - again - as they continued their journey to Slovenia and Croatia. In order to allow the Oostzaan family to pack their camper trailer, we invited Elisabeth, Tiem and Maartje over for a sleep-over and watched some videos due to the rain.
Piet had been asking when we would go to Holland, so we had quizzed him what he wanted to see. "Canals" he had said, so during the last week of our stay we drove to Brugges, a small, picturesque and very touristy town in the north of Belgium. It is built in a style reminiscent of Amsterdam and Jan had never been there, despite it being relatively close to his home town. After the drive we had lunch (Belgian fries) and strolled through the town in good spirits to a canal cruise. As the canals are narrow, the cruise boats are small and not covered. This was unfortunate as it started to rain. Understandably, Piet and Emma were underwhelmed and we went for a waffle with chocolate sauce. The sauce was made of real cacao, which Piet and Emma did not like, so we called it a day. On the way back, it emerged that Piet had wanted to see large, countryside canals, not the historical city canals. Clearly Juultje and oma Bep, who had stayed behind, had had the best day.
The next day was still raining - fairly normal for this time of the year, think Wimbeldon - when Oma and mum took the kids to a maize maze. Finding the way out and doing small assignments kept Piet and Emma well entertained. Juultje insisted on walking a lot herself, so we had to leave early-ish as she got tired.
On the last Wednesday, oma had volunteered to tidy up the last little bits, so we where able to leave early on our way home. We drove past a giant wild boar on our way to Paris.
Paris
The kids wanted to do three things in Paris: Eiffel tower, Arc de Triomphe and Mona Lisa/Louvre. We were not sure how it would all pan out, so we had not booked anything (which in retrospect we should have done). Before we even got to our hotel, we 'did' the Arc de Triomphe by driving around it a few times on the Charles de Gaules round-about, something dad loves. We checked into the hotel Villa Alessandra. The hotel was still as small and cute and the neighbourhood just as nice - partly pedestrianised now - as when Jan used to stay here regularly during his last job in London, a real trip down memory lane. We walked to the Arc de Triomphe, where our well travelled tourist Emma took
her first picture. The queue was short and while dad and Juultje went looking for some milk, mum took Piet and Emma up for the
lovely view.
Emma and Piet took some more pictures of the
Champs Elysees - near which Jan worked 7 months as a trainee - and
Montmartre - which could be viewed when standing on a chair near the window of his bedroom during 3 of those months.
Then we walked on to the Eiffel tower. We admired the iron structure and did some drawing (which Piet had to rub out as it was not of his liking). We took a cab back to the hotel for rest and dinner with slugs nearby.
The next day we drove to the Louvre. Jan had never used a car to get around Paris, but he admits that it is much more car friendly than London and it saved us hassle and time in the underground. We had a quick look at the museum queues and decided we'd rather go to the fair next to the Tuilleries. Piet and Emma went on various rides and amusements, but all where too scary or otherwise not as good as advertised, so we got grumpy and tired. Time to go to the airport.
This was the first time we flew out of Paris Charles de Gaule and hopefully the last (we did not have fond memories of transferring at CDG three years ago either). The queues before even getting to the check-in area were chaotic and reminded us of Heathrow. After that, we were given priority due to Juultje and passed through the next few queues relatively smoothly to board the 8pm Air France plane for Kuala Lumpur. We all has a reasonable sleep and managed, just, to survive 6 hours at KL waiting for the Malaysia Airlines plane, which took us safely to Sydney. We had four amazing weeks behind us, meeting lots of family, doing lots of activities, while still feeling like a holiday.
