Utrecht, Netherlands and....Barcelona, Spain (Part 1)

A couple weeks ago the boys had several days off of school for the ascension holidays. Cole and I had decided that we would take another trip to the Netherlands to try and finish up some of the towns that we missed on our last visit. So we made plans to spend five days visiting Utrecht and Amsterdam. Thankfully, I'm a bit of a procrastinator when it comes to actually booking things and hadn't really nailed much of anything down because our plans changed pretty dramatically at the last minute. However, I had already booked tickets for a Thomas the Train exhibition at the railway museum in Utrecht that were non-refundable for the first day of vacation. 

Our plans for the Netherlands changed because a good friend and former expat here in Gent, Jamie, decided to come for a visit and also planned a trip to Barcelona while she was here. I'm still not exactly sure whether we were invited or invited ourselves, but we ended up with plane tickets to Barcelona along with Jamie and our other friends, Geoffrey and Kseniya. 

On Wednesday, we packed up the car and drove two hours to the railway museum in Utrecht. The boys enjoyed all the trains, shows, and activities!

Sir Topham Hatt (left), aka, the fat controller as they call him over here

Trains, trains, and more trains!

Thomas musical

Ride #1 on the Thomas Express

Ride #2

Eating popcorn and watching a Thomas movie

Ride #3

Saying "goodbye" to Thomas

After spending the day in Utrecht, we drove home to spend the night in Gent before hopping on a plane for Barcelona on Thursday. More to come...