The Chunnel, Stonehenge, Bath and Amiens, France.

Since I had a week off of school for fall break, we decided to drive through the Chunnel from Calais, France to Folkstone, England, and drive to Stonehenge. It was amazing that "the crossing" as they call it, took less than a half hour! They announce that "It's almost time to disembark, turn your clocks back one hour and drive on the left!" The roundabouts were the MOST fun...trying to figure out who had the right of way! I HAD to drive in England though,as a personal goal since learning to drive stick-shift, and even drove us back on the Chunnel when we left England. Stonehenge was amazing, and there are other stone circles around the area too, just not with stones quite as large. We loved seeing the abbeys at Salisbury, Bath, Wells and Lacock. (The Harry Potter movie was filmed there!) We enjoyed the thermal baths in Bath, and were amazed by the Roman Baths there that are STILL airtight and holding water hundreds of years later there. After England, we drove to Amiens, France for two nights to see the largest cathedral in the country. The symbol of World War II, the weeping angel, was there. It took only about four hours to drive back "home" to Holland (after we fixed our flat tire)...another great trip!

A Trip to Maastrich

We finally got away and took a drive down to the southeastern tip of The Netherlands Saturday morning and went to Maastrich. It's a stones-throw from Belgium to the west, and Germany to the east. Even with the Tom-Tom, I think we crossed the Maas River river seven times! Still, it was a lovely old walled city, (the Romans were here!) and we enjoyed walking around. The weather cooperated too, which is unusual for this time of year. Sunday morning we went to the oldest thermal spa in Holland, Terme 2000. We spend four hours in the different pools, and even went in one that was outside. Total destressing needed for standardized testing in school this week. (A first for third graders!) Looking forward to October break when we take the Chunnel to southwest England.