Kleingeld Family Reunion

Willy and Chris organised a gathering of all the descendants of Hank and Sophie Kleingeld. We had a beautiful afternoon in their garden gettng to know each other.

The cousins had a great time too.Here are Aiden ,Michelle ,Kiran ,Megan and Anjali.

Dave and Sara

Cousins Jenna and Jenna. These girls really got on very well!

Arie-Willem and Christien had composed some special songs for the occasion. Of course the ukelelle had to be tuned and warmed up.

The musical brothers and sisters surprised some of us with their singing , but we soon joined in  .

Jobien and Kevin

Off to Paris

Tim and Amrit ,and Dave and  Sara and their children having a break in Lille on our way to Paris. We fitted into 2 cars and travelled with them .

We stopped again in Antwerppen and met at the market square for lunch. The fountain was a big hit with the little ones and since it was quite busy, we enjoyed people watching and the architecture.

We stayed in a hotel outside the city and caught the bus and train in - then caught a hop on -hop off bus to see the sights. Stop 1 view of Eiffel tower.Here is one of the many hawkers who did their best to sell us stuff.

Hank and Tim and Anjali and Kiran walked up the stairs to the second level of the tower.Amrit ( in the white hat) was trying to see them without success .It is quite a climb and I'm told that the view is fantastic.The girls were very pleased with their achievement -daddy didn't carry them at all !

This is a fairly typical street scene -the buildings are a uniform height and there are lots of cars.

The Arc de Triomphe as seen from the bus. There is a bus from the same company driving next to us -you have a view from up high and they have recorded information on headphones.We spent 2 days hopping on and off while the kids went to Disney land.

We went walking some of the time and just happened to find the Moulin Rouge.Not the place to go to at night judging by the no. of sex shops in the area .

On the way back home we detoured via Fromelles where Australian war veterans were reinterned recently.Some people walked past us while we were having a picnic and told us that the original mass grave was at the bottom of this field.

Someone had left this Aussie flag.

The new cemetary was opened a few days before we got there.

Anniversary weekend

The original reason for us to come to Holland was to celebrate Willy and Chris' 40th wedding  anniversary. We travelled to Limburg for the weekend  and stayed in a guest house with the Kleingeld and van Rietschoten brothers and sisters.

 Everyone went their own way during the day - we spent some time in the nearby city of Maastricht, looking at the cathedral and other old architecture.

Each evening we ate at a restaurant which was run by the guesthouse people. The food was exceptionally good ,and we ate like kings! The world cup final was on ,so we all wore somehing orange to encourage the dutchies to win.As you know it was a fruitless exercise but we had fun anyway.

How sweet! This is the highest point in Holland - at the same altitude as our place in Silvan - almost made us feel at home.

Three land borders meet at this spot.

The country in Limburg is flowing hills -a bit like the Dandenongs only different trees.It's hard to imagine that the country has so many people when you see such wide open spaces - it's all in the strict town planning of course 

These are the hills of Holland - right on the border of Belgium and Germany. Reminded us a bit of Silvan