We woke up at 5:00 while it really was 4:00 and we should feel like it was 23:00 the day before. In short we just had our first daylight saving time switch of this year. The next one will be the next weekend.

At exactly 5:00 I started the car fully loaded with 2 almost empty cabin suitcases and 2 (you can say 3) suitcases with a total weight of 43,8 kilogram according to our suitcase scale.

Only 20 minutes later we parked our car in the parking garage we’ve reserved last week en 10 minutes later we dropped off our baggage. At 5:45 we were at gate A04 where had the pleasure to meet a colleague on his way back home to Japan!

Exactly on time everyone was sitting on the right seat and we left Germany behind to visit France. In less than 10 minutes we are both feeling lucky that we need to leave this country behind fast. Nothing is clear, everything is written or announced in France (on an international airport) and most people are not polite.

It took 45 minutes from airplane 1 to airplane 2 and I guess that we walked a couple kilometer too. But with still plenty of time left we waited at the gate before the boarding would start. And too bad our stay in France took a bit longer due to a technical check but only 45 minutes later as expected the plane was on the runway!

The flight itself was one of the better ones we’ve had so far. We both had a glass of champagne and we watched some movies we didn’t see before and we both are of the opinion that White House Down is a better movie as we expected. And at the end we had an amazing look at Miami.

After arriving at Miami Airport with a delay of 30 minutes we speeded to customs but there were already some other flights before us which meant we needed to wait about 45 minutes, not to bad and our suitcases we’re already waiting for us. We looked forward to a shower but after walking 20 minutes and riding a people-mover tot the rental car facility we knew it would take some time before a would have left the airport. And indeed about 2:15 hour later we left the airport in a brand new Infinity QX70 3.7l. Too bad the drive was only 20 minutes and our hotel has valet parking only so I couldn’t try all the options yet.

Speaking about the hotel it’s in Miami South Beach in between Collins Avenue and Ocean Drive. Checking in was a pleasure with champagne, checking out the room was even better. We have a huge bed, a huge balcony and an even bigger bathroom with 4 sections. The shower is amazing…. After the shower someone knocked on our door and brought us a complimentary bottle of wine as a gift because we are platinum members. And if you remember that we stay in this hotel for points we’ve collected with other hotel stays this made it even better.

Since we still hadn’t had a proper evening meal we walked south on Ocean Drive to checkout some places to eat. In the end we went for Finnegan’s Way where we both had a tiny cocktail and something to eat before we went back to the hotel.

Back in our hotel we went to the balcony from where I post our first blog of this trip!

We both enjoyed a long weekend and that was with a special reason because we visited the Netherlands. We left already on Thursday and started with a visit to Wertheim Outlet village which wasn’t as good as we expected. From there we drove up to the Holliday Inn Express in Essen, Germany. We selected this hotel because we both didn’t felt like driving 679 km at once.

After arriving in Essen we had 2 things on our agenda, getting the Starbucks City Mug ‘Ruhrgebiet’ and get a donut at Dunkin’ Donuts! From our hotel it was a short walk to the city center where we also found 2 GeoCaches. At around 22 o’clock we were in our beds since it we would wake-up really early the day after.

This was the first 6th of September (my father’s birthday) without him and that was the main reason for our trip to the Netherlands. We wanted to have a fun day with my mother, my sister and little Jop-Jannes. Hugo my brother-in-law would join us in the evening since he needed to work. We woke up really early so we could take some donuts with us to enjoy together with my family. Further Jop played with his brand new noisy toy (I guess my sister and brother-in-law hate me at this moment), we went to  a restaurant at the Heide, we visited an amazing below water surface bridge, found a GeoCache, had dinner at my sister’s place before we watched “The Voice of Holland” together with my mother.

On Saturday we woke up a bit later and a 10 o’clock the house was full with visitors! Little Jop, Moniek, Hugo and Ronald joined us for a coffee, we made some great pictures of Jop and I played a while with him on the floor. What an amazing started. Afterwards we went to the annual fair in Steenbergen with my sister and had some typically dutch things to eat.

In the late afternoon we took our car up north to the family Schagen! On the way over there we found 2 Carpool caches which is something typically Dutch we believe since in our area there are none. After arriving in Nieuwegein we chatted a while over the past and how long it has been since we had seen Merlijn and Kay. Ria and Ruud we had seen once or twice more the last years. At least Kay didn’t remember us so it was some time… After fries and snacks and the special Kay Cache, where we scored our TTF, we went out for another 2 geocaches, we had a ride with a cable ferry and enjoyed a delicious ice-cream at Luigi’s in Vreeswijk. From there we walked back and soon it was close to eleven. Due to road works we took a detour to Steenbergen which led us a cross some highways: A2, A12, A20, A16, A15, A29 and the A4 close to midnight we arrived at my mother’s place.

The sunday morning started with packing our stuff, we visited Jop and I believe Hugo and Moniek where there too! And then it was celebration time, my mother-in-law celebrate here 57th birthday today so we could join. After the first piece of apple-crumble pie we went to see Danielle her grandfather and mother and before we left to Germany we got another piece of pie. The way back home was as boring as usual and at the end we were both really tired and happy to jump in our beds!

And this monday we both have an additional day of where I took some time to make the following movie with Jop-Jannes as the main actor: