Easter Break: Adventures in Belgium and the Netherlands

For the Easter break this year, we decided to stay a little closer to home and explore places we could easily reach by car. Before the break officially started, the boys had a celebration at school with an Easter egg hunt (indoors due to rain), snacks, and songs.

After the weekend, we headed to a popular amusement park, Plopsaland, with some good friends. The boys spent the day playing, running around and riding as many rides as possible, including a roller coaster! Cole and I even got in on the action and rode the big roller coaster. Despite the bad weather, the boys had a great time!

Roller coaster time

Ready for the big roller coaster! 

After spending a few beautiful days in Gent, we headed to the land of windmills and wooden shoes, the Netherlands. We spent a few days in Rotterdam, visited Keukenhof, and the Delta Works. It was fun driving around the Netherlands. The Netherlands is very flat, but we drove through some beautiful areas with farms and lots of open space. 

Rotterdam was pretty much obliterated during WWII, so it is now a modern looking city. Driving in, it reminded me more of an American city than a European city with it's sky scrappers and modern buildings. Rotterdam also has the third largest port in the world (after Singapore and Shanghai), so you know that the boys were super excited about all the big ships and equipment.  It was interesting to see some of the older architecture mixed in the the new. We stayed in an apartment in the city with a beautiful church right beside a new, more modern building right outside our window.

We started our visit to Rotterdam with a trip to the Maritime Museum. We didn't really get to look at much of anything because there was a miniature port on the top of the building that the boys LOVED! We spent almost the whole time playing with the boys there.

After the Maritime Museum, we headed over to the SS Rotterdam for lunch.

 In the evening, we went on a harbor tour

The Erasmus Bridge

The next day, we headed to Lisse to visit Keukenhof. Keukenhof, also known as the Garden of Europe, is one of the largest flower gardens in the world. There were sooo many beautiful flowers, but there were also places to play and animals to see. It was a beautiful day and we really enjoyed our time there!

Running through the maze

Flower fields 

Wooden shoes!

After spending the morning at Keukenhof, we headed back to Rotterdam to visit the Euromast and take a splash tour.

Heading up the tower

View of Rotterdam from the top of the Euromast

I have never taken a splash tour before. Basically, you take a tour of the city on the bus, but then the bus drives into the water and you continue the tour in the water.

We didn't tell the boy ahead of time what would happen, so they were a little uncertain when the bus drove into the water. The captain was nice enough to let them sit in the front of the bus and really see the splash!

That night, we found a Mexican restaurant and couldn't resist giving it a try. It was just ok, but we still had a nice dinner.

Our last day in the Netherlands, we headed to the coast to visit the Delta Works. Because more than half of the Netherlands lies below sea level, they needed to build something to protect the country from flooding. Here is a little description of the Delta Works from www.holland.com.

The Delta works are the best and largest storm barriers in the world. There is a reason why the dams are nicknamed “the eighth wonder of the world”. They were designed after the floods of 1953 and offer protection to the land surrounding the Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt delta. With the Delta Works, the chances of another flood have been reduced to once every 4000 years.

The Delta Works were developed after the floods of 1953. 20 hours of north-westerly storm pushed the waters of the North Sea up to a height of 4.20 meters above Amsterdam Ordnance Datum (the normal water level). It was too much for the dikes of Zeeland to handle. Nearly two thousand people died and more than 150,000 hectares of land was flooded.  

There was an exhibition, playground, aquarium, and lots of other fun things to enjoy. We were even able to walk through the dams. Despite the very cold, windy, and rainy weather, we had fun learning about and exploring the dams. 

We stayed and had fun until the exhibition closed and then hoped in the car and headed back to Gent. 

The second week of Easter break, Cameron went to a sports camp called "Alles met de Bal" with several friends from school. As you can probably guess from the name, he spent the week playing ball games. Harrison reeaaallllyyy wanted to join, but he's not old enough yet. Regardless, he was happy to be a part of the gang before and after the camp. 

Dancing before the camp started

Goal!!

Another goal!

 We ended the break by spending the day at the Blaarmeersen. We played, rode bikes, went for a walk, and had a picnic. It was a great way to end the Easter break!

Checking out a frog...from a distance