Early start this morning, we have our bags outside our rooms by 6.45 am and have breakfast then leave our hotel at 7.30 . We sadly bid farewell to this very beautiful city and drive through the Belgian countryside, before we cut across a corner of the Netherlands and head into Germany. The boys are riveted by the history of Belgium and love the fact that it is the most “fought” on soil, according to our guide Lynda. We have a mid morning amenities stop, during which we have the boys running races up and down the deserted car-park. Kathryn joins in on a race or two and this burns off a little of the boys energy before reboarding the bus. We arrive at Boppard just before lunch to depart on our Rhine River cruise. The cruise lasts 90 minutes and we have very German sausage, fries and Mark has some schnitzel as well for lunch whilst we cruise down the Rhine. It is very misty and beautiful and it becomes more clear as we cruise further down the river. We see many small castles dotted along the peaks on either side of the river and many vineyards built on impossibly steep slopes. We see the well know Loreley statue on its little island in the middle of the Rhine before we dock and disembark. We have more than a few anxious moments when we cannot find Liam anywhere. Mark checks the bathrooms and I checked the upper decks. Finally we locate him near the doors waiting to disembark. We must have walked past him at least twice in our frantic search but he didn’t try to catch our attention, I now officially have at least 20 new grey hairs as the most likely scenario running through my Mummy mind was that he had quietly slipped overboard at some point in the last 5 minutes! We leave our Rhine cruise at St Goar and drive further down the valley before joining the autobahn. We drive on to Heidelberg and spend the next 2 hours exploring and taking photos. We enjoy some wonderful gelato before wandering back to the bus. Drive to our hotel and after striking bad traffic we arrive late . Dinner is at 8.30 pm, we finally get the kids into bed , download our photos , recharge camera batteries, arrange clothes for kids for the next day then fall into bed.
Tiring but very beautiful scenery filled our long day……..
