Today was our final day of our road trip around Western Europe. We enjoyed a yummy breakfast at the hotel (including Dutch chocolate hail on biscotti's - yum!) and set off for Utrecht which was the closest town to where we were staying. We had a bit of a look around the town, wandering around the streets and paths following the canals. Unfortunately all the shops were shut as it was a Sunday. Coming from NZ where everything is always open it was quite strange a...

Monday was spent at a slower pace than the rest of the visit to Schoonebeek. We used the time to prepare for our upcoming camping trip and Aunty Margareth helped us through it, lending us anything we could ask for, and even some things we didn't, but we did have to decline the kind offer of cellotape, erasers, apple corer, whisk, baking tins, Aunty Margareth and many more She even managed to sneak in a few extras for us like fruit, Dutch peppermints and most y...

We're rather behind in the blogging (again!) so we thought we'd put the next two days of our trip into one. We've been having such a nice time with family that the blogging has taken a back step :) We should start with a great big thank you to Aunty Margareth & Uncle Albert who have been looking after us these past few days. It's amazing how 'at home' we felt :) We arrived in Schoonebeek on Saturday and had a tour of the house and got to see all the renov...

Day two of our Friesland visit was a walk in history day as we visited the 'Aldfaers Zwerf Route'. First stop was Exmorra where we went to a building which contains a grocery shop (part historic museum but also still sold some products that were available 'back in the day'), the grocers home, a school classroom and a shoe maker shop. The beds were in a cupboard and were so short that people would sleep sitting up. In the parents 'bed cupboard' there was also a ...

After a rather long hop (drive), skip (flight) and a jump (train ride) we made it to Friesland ... the province in The Netherlands where my Dad's family is from. Oom Arjen met us at the train station and brought us back to their house where Tante Anna, Aunty Margareth, Uncle Albert, Beppe, Steve & Danielle were waiting. It was great to see everyone again. On Thursday Oom Arjen took Danielle, Steve, Beppe, Brett and I for a boat tour around their part of Fr...