Holland...the conclusion

Last one.  I promise.

There was just soooo much to do and see.  As you may have guessed, I loved Holland.  We headed for Haarlem.  IT WAS ONE OF MY FAVORITES.  I recently read "The Hiding Place."  I'm ashamed to say that I had never read it before, but it was fabulous and I instantly fell in love with the Ten Boom Family.  Their story and faith was amazing.  Haarlem was one of the places I was most excited to visit, and it did not disappoint. 

 Right outside the Corrie Ten Boom House.

 Another view of the house.  It is now a museum and the bottom is a watch/jewelery shop (if you've read the book, you'll understand that significance).  

 This tour was really neat, because they let the kids actually go into the hiding place.  It was really neat to actually put a picture with what I read in the book.  This is Liv going into the bookcase "hiding place."


 This was Corrie's room where the hiding place was.  When the warning buzzer would go off, they would hurry to this room and crawl through the bottom shelf into the hiding place and then Corrie would put the back of the shelf in and put the towels over it.  (The hole in the wall was put there for tour purposes.  That way we could see how small the space was.  Six adults stayed in that tiny space for almost 3 days!  The miraculous thing was that they were never found by the Nazi's and finally a friend who knew about the hiding place came and rescued them. Loved the tour!

 Haarlem also has one of the pretties churches.

 It has a gorgeous wooden slat roof.  The organ in this church was played by Handel and Motzart!

 Okay, am I terrible for putting this up?  

While at the church they were having an art exhibit that we looked at.  This was one of the pieces.  

REALLY?!

  I mean, do you see the ipod? 

 We also spent some time at the beach.  Cold, but so nice.  

I'm telling you, Holland has everything!

Driving on the roads we saw lots and lots of these images.

 Seriously?

This looks like just a bunch of letters stuck together.  They speak this!

 The place we stayed had a great playground. After long days of sight seeing, we'd head back and play at the playground.

 Another really cool thing was the cheese market we went too.

 And yes, it was the best cheese I've ever had.

 We got to hold the cheese wheels.  They are seriously heavy.  The kids needed help holding them. The "cheese men" were hauling about 6 or 7 at a time!

Ever since watching "Best Two Years (a family favorite)," Dudi has wanted to try Hollands Haring (raw fish...yuck!).  At the cheese market he got his chance!

 He ate the whole thing!  

 
 We visited the city of Delft which is known for it's "Delft Blue pottery."  It is gorgeous and the genuine handpainted items can only be bought from 2 factories in Delft that make it.  We went to one of the factories...and Dudi and I got a piece!


 It is the "Girl with the pearl earring."  It is such a gorgeous piece. Vermeer is the artist who did the original and he was from the city of Delft, so that's the piece we chose. 

 The kids and I hiked to the top of the tower in the city square.  Dudi stayed with Jude  because he had done it on a previous trip.  I've gone to the top of a lot of towers, but this one was really, really high.

To say we had fun in Holland was an understatement.  WE LOVED IT!