Return to Soest

On the sundeck (or the wind deck!)

Kids play room

The Pride of Hull took us from the UK back to the continent arriving at the port of Rotterdam in The Netherlands at 9am. It was a 12 hour overnight ferry, absolutely enormous, with 12 decks (including the car and sundecks) at least 3 of which were full of bars and restaurants, quiet rooms and cinema rooms (which sadly we couldn’t experience!) and children’s play area (which we did experience – a lot!).  We spent the best part of the evening in the Showroom Lounge listening to a band and then watching a poor magician go down like a tonne of bricks in front of a dismal audience!  To be fair many of the passengers resembled the cast of The Only Way is Essex mixed with groups of dodgy looking Eastenders type characters, so they probably weren’t that interested in a children’s magician at 10pm after sinking 7 pints/Bacardi Breezers  in an hour.  We finally got the kids into bed about 11pm, and then lost an hour crossing the time zone before being awoken at 6.30am by the ships wake-up call.  But happy to say no-one was sick, not in our cabin anyway!  And it was a very enjoyable trip.

Hugs in Soest

We drove straight to Soest.  It’s on the way to Poland, and we thought it would be nice to stop here for a few days and rest, which is exactly what we’ve been doing.  Our hotel is situated opposite the old town Wall and so a stroll into the town centre or around the ‘moat’ isn’t far.  It’s lovely to be back here, where it all began.  We are more confident this time round, and not so afraid to practice our German as we’ve picked up so much more compared to what we knew in that first week away from home.  It’s amazing how different we feel now after travelling so much, we are used to it now, and so are Amelia and Noah, and everything is far less stressful than it was in those first couple of weeks.  Plus knowing Soest and knowing our way around makes it so much easier.

Can’t help feeling like there’s something missing though?  As we walked into town, passing a familiar street and a familiar little house, we half expected Sue and Frank and little Curly to appear to join us for cake and coffee!  It’s not the same without you!

Also we've noticed over the past couple of days that Noah is showing signs of breaking out into tremendous tantrums!  Terrible Twos have arrived we think!  Noooo!!  And he also likes climbing to great heights then announcing "Weeda weeda caackle!! (I'm the King of the Castle!)" whilst doing some movements that look like the actions to I'm a Little Teapot!

You aint sin me, right?