Our trip to Holland

In October half term -last week in October - we took a holiday to visit some friends in Holland. We took the ferry from Harwich to Hook of Holland. We left our house on the sunday at about 9am and did a family 'tour of duty' visiting various relatives that live in the Essex/Hertfordshire area. We were booked onto the overnight ferry which didn't leave Harwich until 23.45hrs.
We got onto the ferry about 11pm, found our cabin and settled in for the night. Pete and I had to share the beds with kids as they were bunks which aren't really suitable for small people. We arrived in Holland about 6am and after passing through customs ventured out onto the open road. Thankfully SatNav reminded us that we needed to drive on the right hand side. The journey to Amersfoort was about an hour long and very flat, apart from an area called the dykes which is just outside of the ferry port which the roads had been raised up (all man-made) to stop flooding as the area is below sea level. It was a lovely drive (i can say that as I wasn't driving!!) but thank goodness for SatNav. Whilst we were there we went to a place called Zaanse Schans which had lots of windmills and is situated on the River Zaans. We climbed up inside a windmill, had a look at the cheese shop, saw a clog demonstration (the Health and Safety people would've gone mad - no protective glass for the tourists to prevent them getting hit by stray bits of wood, wooden posts as seats. You can just imagine someone with a clipboard writing all these things down, you wouldn 't get away with it in England). We went into Amsterdam on the train which Hannah loved. Went on a canal boat trip and I almost got run over by bikes too many times. They even have multi-storey bike parks which are crammed full of bikes - you wouldn't see it over here. We spent an afternoon looking round Amersfoort, getting a little bit soaked. We went to a cafe and I had the most delicious hot chocolate, it was just lovely. They also had a kids play area on the first floor which was great for the kids BUT there was no stair gate to prevent kids from falling downstairs. (The HSE would have those clipboards out again!!) I do like the Dutch attitude though, I think in this country we no longer allow people to use their common sense or parents to look after their kids. We've probably gone too far down the line of protecting people from themselves. Anyway enough of the politics.
We had a lovely time away, and it sadly came to end all to quickly. Back to work, reality sets in again.