We headed up to Nijmegan (by car) to stay at Sjoerd’s house before our Big Bike Trip. It was a little “fun” waiting to find a spare spot on the train for the bikes (the trains do have bike parking, but, usually just 3 or 4 bikes per compartment). Anyway, we made it.

Sjoerd is – amazing/mad and built a trapdoor under his living room and turned it into an amazing play-cellar (kid dungeon). Very cool.

The next day we headed off on the trip from Nijmegan down to Melick. It’s SO lovely a country to go on a bike trip. Flat, and with dedicated cycleways basically everywhere.

Sjoerd had arranged his buddy Tim to come meet us with ice-pops. Very nice touch.

We had lunch at Maaike’s uncle Bart’s and they laid on a really yum lunch which the hungry children made short work of.

The path crossed in and out of Germany, fortunately it’s all in the EU so we didn’t need to have our passports with us (which we’d forgotten to bring anyway!). Phew.

We got down to our AirBnB in Siebengewald in good time. It was hot, the host arrived with ice-creams & then turned the sprinkler on for the kids! All in all a cracking first day and the kids did super well.

Elise & Daphne came down for a day to hang out with their NZ cousin. Anna completely loved hanging out with them.

We went to the pannekoekenbakker in thorn which was as delicious as ever.

I biked off to Roermond on my own and successfully bought salmon for making sushi. Also tried out teriyaki chicken sushi which I think may have become Anna’s new favourite. Good job too, salmon is way more expensive than chicken ;)

Anna was reunited with Caiden, her old school buddy from when we were here 4 years ago. They do get on so well, even if they only see eachother once every few years. It’ll be interesting to see whether they still gel as they get older.

Oud Limburgs Schuttersfeest is a massive festival for the province of Limburg. This year it was held in Melick which happens to be where Oma and Opa live. Very handy. Lots of traditional music and costume, and the Schutterij (civic guard) competition. They have these really long heavy looking muskets and need to shoot (in order?) tiny little targets mounted really high on a pole. It’s a big event and definitely takes a lot of skill to win it.

We had a nice wander around the Kabouter Bos (gnome forest)

Fun way to get over jetlag. Lovely being back in The Netherlands. They have so many yum nibbly things and beers and it’s just generally a great country!

It was time for Anna and I to join Maaike in The Netherlands. Absolutely stunning view of Taranaki as we flew up. You can see the distinct circular boundary of the national park. It’s literally a 6 mile radius from the summit!. Very cool.

Long haul flights are never fun, but, it has become infinitely easier to travel with Anna now that she’s a bit older. She gets unlimited screen time so is perfectly happy ;). Singapore Air are pretty nice for the kids, they get kids-themed headphones, the apps etc. are locked down to them (annoyingly though they didn’t have games – you had to have your own device and I wasn’t going to give that to Anna). The food is also a little on the spicy side, even when you choose kids meal. Still, we got through it fine having a stopover in Singapore.

We had planned on going to the in-airport swimming pool, but, it was only open for an hour after we arrived and I wasn’t quite sure if we needed to completely exit security or not, so, in the end we just footled about for a few hours. It was fine.

So, 20 million hours later we flew into NL and were reunited with Maaike (and her Aunt and Uncle who came to pick us up). Being made to stay up while you get trains & bike home definitely helped with the jetlag. Still took a few days to get over but not too bad all told.