We recently had a friend from Australia, Kali, come and stay for a few days. She was studying in the US for a term and then touring England and Germany for a little while. She's been to Europe a number of times before but never to our part. Though it was a short visit, she hopes to return next year for a little longer. It was great to have another Australian accent around and she kindly looked after the children one evening while Fenton took me on a date to the Netherlands.
So the date was a trip to the movies to see the latest Star Wars adventure. While there is a cinema in Jülich, we went to Heerlen because the Dutch don't dub their movies. So we could see it in English with Dutch subtitles. So while it sounds a bit decadent and/or bizarre to go to a whole other country just to watch a film, it was only a half hour away. It was nice to spend sometime with Fenton without our beautiful children.
Fenton spent the last few days in the Netherlands learning Dutch. 'Why?', you may ask. It's a requirement of the job. Despite living here, he officially lives there and is required to do an introductory Dutch course. This has caused havoc with his embryonic German.
The weather lately has been almost like an Australian summer with temperatures in the low 30s and has made me feel much more at home. If the temperature gets above 30 here the children are sometimes sent home from school, which they look forward too. The higher temperatures mean we have had more water bombs fights, more ice-cream and more visits to the park.
Aaah How my children would have loved to be sent home from school when the temp here in Qld went above 30 degrees. They did get sent home from Logan Reserve SS when we had flooding even though I told them they weren't made of sugar and wouldn't melt in the rain!!
ReplyDeleteEventually I learnt not to send them to school during torrential downpours because I would always have to go and pick them up again before the end of the day.