Summer is over

Long time no see

Summer is over and a few things have happened. We've been to Austria for nearly 3 weeks. Unfortunately it rained a lot. In the end we escaped from the weather and had few nice days in Bodensee am Osiachersee.

Weekend trip

Our vacation is coming closer and closer. On Friday last week our new tent arrived. We took the opportunity and decided to test it on Saturday. So we packed our stuff and headed north west towards Hindeloopen on the Ijseelmeer.

Summer

It seems that summer has arrived in the Netherlands. The last weeks have been exceptionally nice. Beautiful weather no rain lots of sun. Tina, Sophie and Emily have only one or two more school days and then their summer break starts. We will go to Austria for about 3 weeks. However, it is still not clear where we are going :-( Kommt Zeit, kommt Rat :-)

Hopton on Sea

The family is still recovering from a nice trip to Hopton on Sea. 

We left Enschede on Thursday last week and drove to Hoek van Holland to catch the ferry to Harwich.

Spring has arrived

Hi!

Spring has arrived in the Netherlands. It is surprisingly  warm outside, and the evenings are really long already. Our idyllic evenings on the balcony have been suspended as some bees made use of some holes on the wall and in the table as their new home. For now scotch tape solved the issue.

Vacation planning

We are still trying to plan our vacation. However, until now we couldn't decide on the direction. Either head north and go camping in Sweden (my favorite) or south and escape from it all into an isolated mountain hut on a nice Alm in Austria. We will see what comes up maybe somebody wants to join for on of the activities -- or we come up with something completely new.

And now for something completely different.

All sick

We are all sick. Emily and Sophie started on the weekend, Tina followed and one will see when it fully hits me.

Sophie got an infection of the middle ear and is really poor. However, they all will need to be healthy again until Thursday when Nonna and Opa are coming.

We also bought our tickets for Christmas. The prices are ridiculously low. Emily's ticket to Austria including everything is 1€. The one for Sophie 28€ and the ones for Tina and myself 29€. The same for the return flight with the only difference that then Emily will have to pay 28€ too.

For those interested this means we will be in Austria (Baden, most likely) from 20.12.2009 (21.12. for me) until 4.1.2010. We hope to go to Leoben and spend a few days in Altaussee as well to see some mountains.

Gregor

Weekend trip and how we got LOST

We are LOST. Lat time we visited Shabnam and Walter they lured us into watching LOST, as a result we are now LOST. Thanks Shabnam and Walter :-)

Nevertheless, we managed to get away from the TV and went to Den Haag last weekend. We only made it to the beach at Scheveningen, but Sophie and Emily really liked it. They had a lot of fun in the sand and chasing waves. After everybody got wet we went to meet the Austrians Abroad. They had a party in a bowling center. It was nice and Sophie danced a lot to the music played by the Belgian band called Gipfelfreunde (?!?). I guess there will be images but I have to get them from Tina first.

Progress

We are making progress. Nearly all the boxes are gone from the flat and Tina and Sophie are close to opening their bottles of champagne to celebrate this. Today Sophie went on here first bicycle tour. Emily got a free ride on my bike but Sophie used her own bike to go to the Viermarken farm and visit the pony's on the way. 3km for her first tour -- not to bad.

Other things that have happened include a trip to Austria to not forget what mountains look like and how thin air feels. We went to Stubaital for a few days. We made two tours. The one brought us to the Senn Joch Hütte from the end station of Schlick2000. While the other one nearly brought us to the Franz Senn Hütte, but we stopped already at the Alpeineralm. In both cases Sophie got a ride their sleeping, but walked back both times (40 min and 1.5 hours).

Pictures will follow as soon I get hold of them, hopefully together with some older images that still need to be transfered from the old homepage.