Moving around in Holland!

Over the past week I've been in Kampen, Rotterdam, Delft, Gouda, Hardenberg, Zwartsluis and Geithoorn. Here are some of the pictures

The Tower of Babel - absolutely stunning when you see it in real life!

One of Monet's pieces featuring poppies :)

The Euromast tower in Rotterdam, reaching 185 m. Gives a perfect view of the city!

It needs cleaning of course! With what? you may ask...
A KARCHER!

When you are in a tower and there is a restaurant, the best thing to do is soak up the view with a glass of red wine, don't you think?

And some great company!

We still have a bigger one!

The view as we travelled higher

another section of the city

and me, at the highest level visitors are allowed to go to - that is outside

showing the distance to other towers around the world... am quite close to Paris!! It's about the same distance from Perth to Albany :) Should get in the car.....

Beautiful Delft

the Vermeer museum in Delft - do you recognise this Oma?!

seeing Delft blue being painted

and Gouda... famous for... Cheese! Mum & Dad - notice the HUGE knee brace under my jeans? I'm being a very good girl and am wearing it every day :)

just a small sample of the massive amounts of cheese that Gouda has to offer

the beautiful stained glass windows in St Johns Church in Gouda, so hard to photograph unfortunately

Kampen

Hello everyone,

I spent last weekend with Gerrit at Tim and Hanneke's place, which was a lot of fun. It was really amazing to be in the very city that Opa and Oma Kroeze lived in for such a long time. I really enjoyed driving around and visiting different parts of the city. Below is a snapshot of some of things we did! I also had my first Dutch bike ride so that was really cool!

Enjoy :)

Love Sarah xx

Just to show that we were actually there!
Freezing our butts off in Kampen. Man, it has been chilly in Holland - I've been wearing so many clothes but still haven't always felt warm! Reminds me of Tassie winter :)

The organ in one of the many churches in Kampen - the Boven Kerk. Gerrit played two organs here. This one has 4000 pipes and is from 1743. Amazing hey!!

Gerrit playing the organ - it sounded really nice!

Oma, this one is for you! I won't be able to bring any home, though :)

The Kleinste Huisje - the smallest house you ever did see! I had to duck to get through the door :) It was basically one room downstairs and one room upstairs - with both of these rooms being very small. A family of 5 lived there which is absolutely incredible!!

Yep, Gerrit is too tall for the door too!

Inside the house - it's set up for display so it's quite full of little things but you get the general idea... it's amazing how people can cope with small environments when it's necessary.

Oma - look what I found!!!

This is the station house in Kampen. Oma, is this familiar??! Was really cool for me to see it.

The canal outside the house that Opa used to live in. I loved the fact that you could walk out of the front door and there is a canal on the other side of the road.

Tim and Hanneke standing outside Opa's house

Gerrit and I standing outside Opa's house

Upstairs was a hiding place where Opa's family hid Jews during WW2. It was unbelievable to actually see it. So amazing to think that this secret place saved lives

Looking down into it. It's incredibly small!

Replacing the floor cover and then flipping the carpet back over

Standing in the front room. From what we could figure out, this fire place is part of the original house. A lot of things have been changed, but this seems to be the same :)

A strawberry farm. You don't even have to go in, you can buy boxes of strawberries from the vending machine. You see this all over Holland. It's quite unreal!!

The boats in Urk, on the Dutch coast. Urk has a rich history in fishing, which is still the main source of income for the local people today.

Technical glitches...

Hello everyone,

I did a new entry today... about the Keukenhof flower show but it seems to have slipped itself below a bit further :)

Scroll down to check it out

Sarah xx

To My Dear Mum

This is a post to my dearest Mum - Happy Mother's Day from the other side of the world! Here is a little poem I found.

A mother's love is always true,
It's all you need to get you through.

A mother's love is always there,
In simple ways she'll show she cares.

A mother's love can never compare,
With anyone else's, anywhere!

A mother's love is here to stay,
I love you Mum, Happy Mother's Day!

Mum, you're the best in the world - there's no one like you. I don't know what I'd do without you :) Love you so much xxx

Flowers everywhere

Hello everyone,

It's been a week since I updated here so I thought I better pop a few photos up! Last week I went to Keukenhof - a tulip show - here in the Netherlands. I spent the afternoon there with Shaney and her boyfriend Chris. We wandered around the beautiful gardens and soaked up the ambiance. The flowers were absolutely stunning - mostly tulips, with a few other varieties.

We took sooooo many photos! I was amazed at how different the varieties of tulips can be - some looked ripped, others prickly, others like champangne glasses and still others like ice cream balls. It was incredible! They are such a stunning part of God's creation. You can see a selection of pictures here - I took over 300 so it was very hard to choose :) Enjoy them!

I will update again soon - spent the last week in Kampen and Rotterdam and have plenty of stories to tell! Have a wonderful day,

Love Sarah xx