Day 26 - Family & Burger’s Zoo

Today we had a family day planned. In the morning we got ready to head to Caroline & Dirk-Jan’s house for coffee and cake with all the family.

The kids had so much fun playing with the other children, and they didn’t seem to mind at all that they couldn’t speak the same language.

We had appelflappen (basically the same as apple turnovers) and coffee and we chatted to all the family - except Auke of course. He had found a Donald Duck comic and was occupied reading that.

Titus was busy catching up on hugs with his Omama who he was/is very attached to.

Just before we left, some of us had a quick game of backyard soccer.

At around 10.00am, we all headed off to go to Burger’s Zoo in Arnhem. We got there are 11.00am and all headed inside. This zoo has the most amazing set up - all the exhibitions have a theme, for example ‘safari’ and the whole area is set up like this. Also, most of the zoo is undercover which was very handy considering after about an hour it started pouring with lightning and thunder. This zoo also has a giant playground but sadly the kids couldn’t play on it because of the rain.

They also had a show for kids about animals which we went to and they loved. As well as this, around the zoo they had little nooks and crannies the kids could climb up or into which they thought was fantastic. There was also a beautiful waterfall there.

After we had finished looking around the zoo, we had to walk back to our cars in the pouring rain. We all got completely soaked and as you can tell by Genevieve’s face, she was totally not impressed.

We all drove to the Pannekoeken House for dinner (pancake house). These pancakes were absolutely massive! They were all super delicious. We were surprised that both Mila and Lana managed to eat their entire pancake and still have room for dessert! Ali ordered a bacon, ham, capsicum and cheese one, and Auke ordered an apple and cinnamon one. We even had a rum and raisin icecream dessert.

This pancake place was perfect for kids. They had go karts, a tennis court, two different playgrounds, deer, goats, a sandpit, a trampoline, and a tractor they could hop on. They couldn’t wait to finish eating so they could go outside again to play.

After dinner we all headed home. The kids went to bed and Ali and Auke decided to go for a bike ride. The only bikes they seem to have in the Netherlands is for tall people so it was quite a mission for Ali to even get on as she couldn’t reach the ground so had to jump up onto the bike. We rode to Speuld and back. It was very pretty with all the beautiful trees!