Amsterdam is a beautiful, interesting, diverse city, and it has more canals than Venice!! This is a city you can relax in, people don't seem in a hurry, everyone is happy. This was a lovely trip for our family. A friend of a friend let us stay at her townhouse while she was out of town. We had comfortable beds, a kitchen to cook in, lots of toys for the kids, and bikes we could borrow. We had a lot of fun and I found that I could get very used to biking everywhere.
Here's your obligatory oversized wooden shoe... Welcome to Holland!
This picture was taken in front of the train station. The train station, even though under partial reconstruction, was beautiful. The amazing part was the bikes. There are bikes everywhere in Amsterdam, it's the preferred method of transportation. The train station has enormous bike racks with literally thousands of bikes locked into them.
We are at the edge of the harbor, in front of NEMO (a science museum) and a replica of the Amsterdam, an 18th century Dutch East India Company cargo ship.
Inside NEMO, Billy takes a ride.
I'm in a bubble!!!!
Me too!!!
Out for some traditional dutch pancakes. This pancake house had a children's menu and each pancake came with a toy.
The big museums in the Netherlands don't allow photos. This museum had Van Gogh's self portrait, Sunflowers, and The Potato Eaters, among many others. The museum also has a treasure hunt for kids. You get little clues about certain paintings and you have to try to find out which one it is. At the end you get a little prize. Billy and Nolan got into this and I actually think Billy was appreciating the art more because he had to really look at the pieces and study them.
Out and about.
Dam Square, a beautiful and lively center with a ton of street performers, shops, and cafes. Today, they brought in several tons of sand and were having a beach soccer tournament.
The kids love to feed the pigeons (Nolan was taking a rest in the stroller at this point).
The kids loved the canal cruise.
The tours all say this is one of the most beautiful parts of the canal cruise. You can see seven bridges in a row over this canal.
Day three, we decided to take a bike ride to Amsterdam Bos, a beautiful bike ride along a canal on the outskirts of town.
This is the Dutch pick-up truck, it carried Katie and groceries daily.
We biked out past the Bos and went to a little farm to get a bite to eat and check out the local animals.
Mainly, they have goats, lots and lots of goats. On this trip, we found out how much Nolan loves animals. He loved the cats at the house we stayed in, and he really loved the animals here at this farm.
Katie was slow to warm up to the animals at first, but she found this ride-on toy.
Billy hanging out with the local chicks.
Nolan could not believe the size of this pig.
This farm has a lot of baby goats. You can buy little bottles and feed them yourself. Nolan wanted to feed as many as he could.
Katie finally warmed up to the idea of feeding the goats with a lot of help from Billy. Once she figured it out, she liked it.
Even I fed one of the baby goats, it was super cute.
Later in the day, we went to the Rijksmuseum. This museum houses many works of art from famous Dutch painters, including masterpieces from Vermeer and Rembrandt.
Locking up our bikes near the Waterlooplein Market.
The town of Haarlem. This town was terrific. It was quaint in a way big cities aren't and the architecture wowed us. This town is only about 20 minutes away from Amsterdam.
Shopping.
Eating.
On the way home we stopped at Burg Eltz, near the town of Münstermaifeld. All I can say is, wow.
Seeing a beautiful castle with my beautiful children. 
So, wow, this isn't written up anywhere. It's Burg Thurant and it's on the way home from Burg Eltz. We just drove by it and we couldn't believe how amazing it looked. Unfortunately it was about 6:30 in the evening, so it was closed. But, I put it up for my friends who plan on going to Eltz, don't miss this one!!
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This was the building our apartment was in, the one with the green shutters. The apartment was at the top. The location was amazing, just steps to the center of town.
What do you do in Alsace???? Visit the wine caves of course!
Peek-a-boo!
This was the town of Eguisheim, a favorite of ours! We bought lots of wine here!
Fountains were everywhere.
We just loved this village.
Some days, I just wish I was French.
Day two, we drove to Belfort, France for a flea market and to see the town. The market was very big and had lots of great things. We had no idea that a citadel this size encircled the city center. While I shopped, Bill took the kids climbing.
We did not buy these at the flea market, even though Bill wanted to.
French bread, still hot from the oven......mmmmmmmmmm.
Day three began with a trip up to the top of a mountain to see Haut Koenigsbourg Castle, quite a beautiful castle.
A true highlight of the trip for the kids, Montagne des Singes (monkey mountain). Where you get to feed popcorn to monkeys. Nolan was delighted to say the least. Katie was not really willing to feed them, but she liked being there.
Just priceless.
"So, what's up??".
Day four began with a trip to Ribeauville. A beautiful village.
The kids loved this statue of a piper.
A visit to Jean, the tablecloth guy. And I did not leave empty handed.
So, we were driving home on some back roads with Tomtom navigating and randomly come across an American tank. We stop of course and find out that this spot is a bunker in the Maginot Line, right along the Rhine. The bunker has been converted to be a small WWII museum. Very neat!
The was a piece of bridging equipment from WWII.