Day 23 - Amsterdam, Here We Come!

Today we had to get up at 3.30am!! We had an early morning flight and the shuttle was coming to get us at 4.30am.

We dragged ourselves out of bed, packed the last few things, got the kids ready, and off we went to Berlin airport!

At the airport, we couldn’t believe how long the queues were at this time of the morning! We decided instead of getting breakfast first, we would straight away do the bag drop and security.

We waited for ages in a queue to get our stickers for the bags, and then waited nearly fourty minutes just to drop the bags off! By this time we only had 30 minutes until boarding closed and we still had to go through security.

The security was ridiculously strict here - every other European country we had been in so far had really easy security, but Germany put even Australia and the U.S. to shame. By the time we finally got to our gate to board, we had about 3 minutes until boarding closed. Thankfully everyone seemed to be in the same boat and we were far from being the last to arrive. Boarding ended up closing just ten minutes before take off.

This is one place you definitely need a minimum of two hours before your flight!

While Ali joined the boarding queue, Auke quickly ran to try to find us some breakfast.

We then had to take a bus to the plane as it was so far away.

The flight was perfectly smooth! Flying into the Netherlands is so different from flying into any other country, It is just perfectly flat, except for the trees!

Once we arrived, we got our luggage and picked up our hire car. Turns out they didn’t have the car we had booked, so they gave us a free upgrade! Our upgrade ended up being a brand new car straight from the dealer that had never been used before! It was also a lot bigger than our original car! As it’s new and is white, no scratches will be hidden at all so Auke is feeling the pressure!

We drove to Garderen, and tried to check into our new place which is a bungaloo near the forest. They weren’t ready for us yet but we were able to drop our luggage off.

We decided to grab a few groceries which ended up being a dropje buying spree for Ali.

Next, we drove to Oma and Opa’s house to surprise them as they didn’t know we were here yet! Titus had a nap while we stayed for a coffee.

We then drove to see Dirk-Jan and Caroline’s house. By this time the sun had warmed up a bit so we sat outside in the sun for a while!

We then drove back to Oma and Opa’s where Opa took the girls to see the horses.

After this we had dinner, and then headed back to our place to put the kids to bed.