The last overdose of pictures of our holiday is coming up right now. First, some relaxation shots…


… and then last Saturday afternoon we drove just across the border to Belgium, to the little town of Remouchamps which houses caves. You can walk through the caves and actually ride a boat inside. We had done that once before with the kids back in 2005 when they were 4 and 19 months young respectively.


Of course they don’t remember but why not do it again and have at least our daughter remember it this time, we thought? So, we returned again now, 15 years later, with the difference being that this time we had to walk through the caves wearing masks. The boat ride at the end to get back to the entrance was still a lot of fun to do.















We then drove on to Germany, to Aachen again, to have dinner there.


Yesterday, on Sunday, we went into Maastricht again, this time for the sole purpose of visiting the inside of the St. Servaas church and see the treasury there.













I always love when there’s a crypt to visit and there was one in this church where Servaas from the 4th century (him after whom the church is named) is buried.




We then went into the treasury which housed St. Servaas’s bowl and key…


There were many other beautiful and very old and sometimes also weird treasures, like a severed head plaque of a saint…






There were relics with the bones of saints in them…


… and very old silks from the 10th/11th centuries…


… and some really old crosses! The cross here below on the left is from the 5th/6th century, the one on the right is even older from the 2nd/3rd century (Syrian or North-African).


The inner couryard was filled with wonderfully flagrant lavender…




It was really hot, so we went back to the coolness of our holiday cottage before heading into Maastricht again in the evening for a sushi dinner in a Japanese restaurant that housed a huge Buddha statue…



We ate so much, we needed a little walk around the city before heading back again.



This morning we packed up our things and left the holiday cottage at 10.30 am. We drove to the nearby US military cemetery in Margraten where over 8000 US soldiers are buried who fought to help free The Netherlands and Europe from Nazi terror in World War II. Such places are always very sobering to visit.














We then took a scenic route to Roermond and had lunch there. As from today you need to leave your name and phone number at all restaurants in The Netherlands so that you can be traced should a Corona outbreak happen again in the area. This already happens in Germany, now with Corona cases on the rise again here in The Netherlands, it is also done here. After lunch we walked around a little bit before we headed to our own home again.















It was lovely to see Mr Esther junior again when we got home (we really missed having him around on holiday – first time in 19 years that he had not come with us). He was extremely happy with the NBA basketball jersey we got him (from his fave player Giannis Antetokounmpo from the Milwaukee Bucks, bought at an NBA store in Aachen) and he admired his father’s ever growing Corona beard…

And now it’s back to quarantine at home again. Mr Esther and I still have one more week off work left to enjoy.