We decided to take advantage of the timing of Nate’s mom’s visit and head back to one of our favorite places – Holland in the spring! First stop: Kinderdijk. First item of business once we got there: eat some stroopwaffles. Kinderdijk is a windmill village with 19 windmills built several hundred years ago. It was beautiful, and so interesting to learn about how the windmills work. We were able to go inside one of them and see how the families that operated the windmill lived (inside of it!). It’s amazing how loud the windmill is when it’s spinning around.
We stayed at an airbnb in a cute little Dutch farming town between Kinderdijk and Keukenhof. We went and checked in that night, and the kids were super excited to have a yard with a trampoline in it!
The next morning, we drove to Keukenhof to see the tulip festival. We timed it just right – so many tulips were in bloom! It was amazing. Bennett loved walking around with his grandma taking pictures of all the flowers, and Ryan and Eliza loved exploring. Lincoln was a trooper in the Bjorn and only came out when he was hungry or forced to pose for pictures. The weather was beautiful and we were able to take our time wandering through the tulips.
When the kids were done with the tulips, we drove back and hung out at the house. We ate all our meals on the patio in the back yard, and loved being able to relax outside. Both nights we stayed there, Nate and I took advantage of the bikes the owners had made available and went for an evening bike ride once the kids were in bed. We loved exploring the little town and the farm fields, and feeling very Dutch on our bikes. Several of the farms had locker-size vending machine fruit stands where you could put money in and buy a basket of fresh strawberries, or freshly pressed apple juice, or other fresh fruit any time of day. A little market in town had amazing croissants and pain au chocolat that we had for breakfast both days – they were better and fresher than anything we had tried in Luxembourg! Definitely one of our favorite airbnb finds – for the garden and for the location with the little town it was in. The kids called it the “trampoline house” and kept wanting to go back afterwards.
On Saturday, we relaxed around the house and packed up, then drove to Delft. Cathy wanted to ride the train home from there and have a real European train experience, and Bennett was excited to go with her. We dropped them off at the train station in Delft, then explored the city a little bit. We loved the amazing buildings on the town square, the Dutch man making wooden shoes, and the Delft pottery in all the shops. And a hot touristy day wouldn’t be complete without ice cream!
After spending a couple of hours in Delft, we started our drive back to Luxembourg. Meanwhile, Bennett was having a fun time with Grandma on the train. They accidentally made their way to Harlaam just outside of Amsterdam (they got on the right train line in Delft, but going the wrong direction), then had a couple issues with being directed to the wrong tracks and missing trains that made the journey into quite the adventure! Despite the mishaps, they had fun together painting, seeing tulip fields out the train windows, eating ice cream, and taking pictures on the train. The 6-hour, 3-train journey turned into a 9-hour, 6-train journey and we were happy to see them come off the train! Bennett couldn’t stop talking about the trip and how he got to stay up way past his bedtime.
We were so grateful we got to go back to Holland and see the tulips one more time. There’s something about the windmills, the canals and the bikes that makes Holland so picturesque and one of my favorite places! It was the perfect way to end Grandma’s visit.
