And we're back! We didn't know if we'd be taking the moho travelling again this year but after looking into trips abroad for some winter sun we couldn't justify the cost so we decided to do what we know best and venture out in our Mario.
This didn't leave us with many weeks to get planning or even decide where we should go. You can't get too far of course in only a week and Al had read about Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany which is said to be the inspiration for Walt Disney's princess castle. With a destination in mind we could then start working backwards on the route.
I did see that Playmobil land wasn't too far away which is where the kids loved on our Big Adventure in the summer of 2023. They'll randomly ask when we can go back not realising it takes a couple of days to travel there. With 2 locations locked in and knowing the number of days we have to travel its then a case of working out the time to get between them, dividing it by the number of days to see how many hours per day we have to travel then looking along the route for place names I've heard of and doing lots of research of things to do in those areas.
Another few planning sessions and we had a rough route so it was time to start booking. Al had mentioned that tickets to the castle were highly sort after and we hadn't realised it was also school holidays in Germany the same week we're travelling. This meant that when we came to book the castle it was fully sold out!! We had now planned our entire trip on somewhere we couldn't even visit. It was a little disheartening, especially as I'm usually on top of these things but such is life and there was no point stressing. Instead we had to do another 3 or 4 revisions but we eventually had a final plan!
Our route has us travelling through France, Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg and Belguim. We've got trips planned in all the countries except France. Trying to get between Germany and Belgium our 'best' stops based on direct routes and time driving each day has actually worked out that we stop at 2 of the exact same places as the 2023 summer trip (not including the planned trip to Playmobil). Al was over the moon about this, probably as much as the kids loved Playmobil, Al really loved the Völklingen ironworks. If you've been reading the blog for a while you may remember our visit (it even features this month on our family calendar).
Its a disused coal mine that has now been turned into an art gallery. The gallery doesn't have permanent exhibitions and I had to agree that the one on display whilst we are there does look great and also satisfies the kids love of art musuems. Stay tuned to read all about it I guess. The next duplicate stop is to Luxemberg city. We were really lucky last year as visitors can go into the royal palace for about 6 weeks of the year whilst the royal family are on their vacations. Again this is something that gets booked up months in advance but that time I was on the case. Most of the 'top things to do' websites suggest we've already done most things except the casemates du boc which are actually one of the things in one of our loved travel books. Whenever we are going somewhere new I always check it out for ideas (we're up to 106 out of 1000 so plenty still to go).
As I'm sure the previous blogs have shown the kids really do have a great time but this time I've been met with a level of concern. We will be travelling during their most favourite time of the year which is apparently Halloween on account of the fact we walk up to strangers decorated houses in the village and get free sweets. Forget about all the adventures we'll be having, oh no, I've had to assure them they can walk around the moho multiple times with their bags and I'll pretend to be different people handing them out sweets. With just 2 days until we leave and we only just started packing some clothes at the weekend the one thing I do have all sorted is the snack bag which the kids are now well aware of and it also gives me a bribing tool for good behaviour should they want a treat from it. In fact I kind of forgot how much stuff I had picked up since I'd add a few bits each time I popped to the shops so I wouldn't be surprised if some of it ends up coming back.
In other pre trip news, Mario has had a few upgrades from the last outing. Just minor things but when you're living in a small space for any length of time even the smallest thing can make a big difference. We're not a hang things up kind of a family, we're doing well if things make it off the clean clothes pile on the floor and folded into drawers sometimes so having a tiny wardrobe for 4 people to share really wasn't practical. We'd use our very handy storage cubes but they would all get ram-shoved into the space and after a few days there wouldn't be any order to anything. So now we've got a set of shelves, one for each person plus a couple extra so now we can easily know what's what, like I said might not seem a big deal but whenever we needed something in a hurry it always used to feel like a mission trying to find it even when we got different coloured cubes for different people :-)
With 6hrs to get everything ready to go it feels like a long time but also I seem to blink and have lost another hour. Ideally we should have been better prepared but we're not so it's all systems go. It's not just a matter of packing the clothes but in some cases getting things washed and dried first. If things all go to plan we won't get back until around 10pm the night before the kids go back to school too so I've also needed to make sure we're all ready for Monday's return. There was also a small matter of an unwanted house guest and trying to get rid of it before we left. The night before I went into the spare room / random dumping ground to get the large bag of pasta to pack. I picked it up and noticed it was half empty! I found a small hole but there was no way it could have spilt out. We opened the sofa bed and found all the pasta along with a little mouse!!
It must have been taking it piece by piece and was stockpiling it! For the past 24hrs we've been trying to capture it with cheese and a trap but instead he's just been living his best life and stealing said cheese without getting caught. Thankfully however I can report on our 4th attempt at loading the cheese he was caught and evicted.
Shopping done, hopefully everything packed (although within 5 mins of leaving I remembered I had forgotten my running trainers) and I was walking the kids back from school with pizzas cooking in the oven. I thought I would just check what Google maps was saying about our route and disaster, there was a sea of red roads and even if we left immediately there was a good chance we'd arrive after check in for the ferry closes.
In what is probably our quickest ever turn around the kids were changed, in the moho with their pizza, pumpkins quickly placed by the front door so we didn't return to a rotting mess inside and we're off.
Ever the optimist, Al suggests that the traffic could ease up by the time we arrive but sadly it's the opposite, we're lucky if we reach 15 mph on the M25 and it's depressing looking at the estimated arrival time getting closer and closer to the leaving time.
By the time the traffic eases even slightly we're due to arrive 15 mins before the boat is due to leave. To make matters even worse as soon as we start moving Liliya needs the bathroom, with no time to go into the services themselves we're pleased to have our own facilities (unlike the family we passed on the hard shoulder!) and now we know we'll miss the ferry anyway an extra 5 mins isn't going to be an issue. It also gives me a chance to open the snack bag which gets me a few extra brownie points with the kids.
The ferry website says they will try and accommodate any arrivals 4hrs either side of your booked ticket time and there's a ferry to Calais an hour later and Dunkirk two hours later so we're hoping for a bit of good luck given its not as easy in a motorhome due to our height if the next ferry was full with high vehicles 😬.
Arriving at 19:44 for a ferry that leaves at 20:00 is a little frustrating but they are able to get us onto the Calais crossing at 21.10 so it's not the end of the world.
The trip to get here that should have taken 2.5hrs ended up taking almost 4hrs.
We take a quick walk to stretch our legs then let the kids watch a movie.
It was already going to be a fairly late night so just hope they wake up refreshed tomorrow as we have a full fun packed day ahead of us.
All on board and Robert finishes off the movie whilst Liliya does some colouring.
Let's hope it's plain sailing through France, Belgium and the Netherlands tonight.