For October half term we booked an AirBnb in Middelbeers, Netherlands with the intention of exploring a few of the bordering countries. Although most drive days would be between 1-2 hours we could visit Belgium, Netherlands and Germany.

We were taking our car and took an early morning Chunnel from Ashchurch to Calais on the Saturday morning. Middelbeers was 3 hours from Calais so we knew we would stop somewhere on route but hadn’t thought about where.

As we left Calais, we saw a sign for Ypres and as lots of school trips visited we decided it must be worth a visit.

Ypres was very quiet so we parked on the road and made our way to the In Flanders Fields Museum – a WW1 museum. It was full of interactive displays and we climbed up the tower and there were views across all of Ypres.

We were starting to get hungry so as we were in Belgium it had to be waffles for lunch. We found a lovely cafe and we had waffles with chocolate sauce and ice cream.

^{Waffles for lunch}

We went for a wander through the streets looking at all the beautiful chocolate shops and then headed to the Menin Gate where Stu found the name of one of his relatives. We decided if we had time we would try and come back one evening for the Last Post.

We headed back to the car and drove to Tyne Cot War Cemetery which is just outside of Ypres.

We hadn’t planned on the day being such a history lesson for the kids but it was a really good day. We still had a 2.5 hour drive to our holiday home so it was time to leave.

Our house was on a farm so when we arrived Tom & Izzy enjoyed seeing all the cows, goats and chickens!

^{Our AirBnb for the week in Middelbeers, Netherlands}