And we are off - that sure looks like a ton of bags but when you consider 8 of us are traveling for 12 days we are packing light.
Thursday was the last day of school so Kate had two finals and Lily didn't want to miss all the fun so they both went to the half day of school. Andrew had the Wahoo Senior night party the night before and had ended the night at Ethan's house. I'm not sure he got any sleep but he got home in time to pack before we left. The rest of us spent the morning mowing the lawn and preparing to leave for nearly two weeks.
On the shuttle - this is really happening. While being cute together I noticed how Mack and Lily have the same toothless smile! Do you see it?
Let the 10 hour flight begin
Miraculously we had no significant delays and landed in Amsterdam around 1:00pm felling like 5:00am to us. We stashed our bags in airport lockers and started our layover adventure.
It was a bit of an adventure finding a bus into town but between Natali and Greg they eventually figured it out.
I loved Amsterdam, the canals, the bikes, the people sitting outside eating just facing the street watching the world - loved it. In fact, I learned on the bus ride from my friendly seat mate, Netherlands has 2.5 bikes per person. He admitted that he and his wife and daughter each own 3 bikes. Mind blowing right.
Our first stop was the Rjiksmuseum where we enjoyed 90 minutes spent admiring Rembrandts, Van Goghs and other treasures.
Oh and the cats, we enjoyed all the cat paintings and artwork. 🙄
Emily admired this doll house so much she left a nice face print on the glass when she unknowingly got too close.
This library was so cool.
Greg and I definitely enjoyed our 90 minutes but some of the kids might not have enjoyed it quite as much.
From there we wandered over to the Anne Frank house. We learned to watch out for speeding bikes, got our fill of weed smell, and enjoyed a few pastries along the way.
The home was sad but powerful. Seeing the bookshelf/hidden door as we was when they were hiding was incredible.
This is the exterior of the factory where their living area was hidden.
We then enjoyed a bit more wondering as we headed back to the bus stop.
We made a little snack stop and had a divine waffle and pretzel- the the pastry sampling truly begin.
We ended up having to walk farther than we realized and were really booking it by the end (so grateful we didn't have bags). The kids wanted to stop for dinner but we had to rush to the airport.
The rushing paid off and we made a slick trip through security and had plenty of time to catch dinner in the airport.
This face looks sad but the kids were thrilled to eat McDonalds - Natali, Greg and I found a lovely sandwich place instead.
Then after all that rushing our flight was delayed so Greg bought us some stroopwafles to make us smile.
A crazy shuttle ride, a few hours in a plane and we were in Inverness by 10:00pm.
Greg wrote this about our time passing through customs.
"Natali had expressed to Lisa some frustration that I was holding all of the passports—I didn’t treat her like an independent adult. Accordingly I had given hers back after we used them in Amsterdam. The Inverness airport is one of the smaller international airports I’ve been through. The friendly Scot at customs joked and talked with our family and distractedly stamped our seven passports and waved the eight of us through. A minute later I realized Natali had forgotten to get her passport out and the agent had let an extra person into the country. I must admit I enjoyed teasing her for sneaking into the country as I sent her back to the embarrassed agent. She’ll be better at adulting by the time she comes home from Europe in August."
Fun times. Exhausted, we were all grateful to learn that we could see our hotel from the airport exit doors. A short walk and everyone was tucked in and asleep.
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