Amsterdam, Netherlands

One of the last places we wanted to visit while still living in Europe was the Netherlands.  Of course we could name a ton of other places, but we are out of time and this was close and at the top of our list. We had a great, long weekend there.  We actually stayed in a really fun place.  

We got a 3 bedroom bungalow, and with that came free entrance to the adjoining amusement park and water park.  So we would spend the mornings at the amusement park, afternoons touring around the coast of the Netherlands, and evenings in the waterpark since it was indoors and open until 10pm!

 We had to go to the Van Gogh museum since he is from the Netherlands!

 We were excited, because unlike the Picasso museum in Spain, the girls actually recognized some of the pieces they saw by Van Gogh from their art classes.

It was a fun museum to go through, and not too long...which we like with twin boys!

 Next we walked along the canals towards the Anne Frank House.

 Outside the Anne Frank house.

Pictures were not allowed inside.

We had shown the girls a movie about Anne Frank, so they were really interested in going here.  It made it seem that much more real to them, I think.  They really enjoyed it.  Hannah's favorite part was seeing the "real"diary.  They whole tour she liked, but she kept saying "ok, mom, but do we get to see the actual diary?"  We did!  We saw the diary she starts out with from her 13th birthday, and then it moves on to loose pages of paper, book leaflets, and any scraps she can find to write on.

It was fascinating!

 We ended our time in Amsterdam, with a walk through town along some of the major canals.  We stopped at the delft store and I found a pretty little vase, and we ended at the flower market.  Which I don't have pictures of!

 We passed a street organ.  We had seen these in a museum  so it was fun to see an actual one in use.  We all agreed that the owner cheated though....instead of hand cranking the crank, it was hooked up to a belt and generator.  No tip from us...kidding!

It 's a fun town to visit, but very liberal!