Sharing the journey of becoming an expat and the growth that comes with it.
Many of our trips have been spontaneous but this trip has been planned for months. Matt (Josh’s brother) and Tomi (Matt’s girlfriend) were the first people to say “we’re coming to visit!” and we picked a place (Italy) and time (the boys’ fall break) to make it happen. We visited Rome and Tuscany within a week!
Why Champagne? Well, why not? This was planned somewhat spontaneously. We’ve come to appreciate that several places in France are 4 or less hours away. Totally drive-able for quick trips. Josh and I both enjoy Champagne wines, and it has been a bucket list item for us to go, taste, and also cycle in the region. We checked all those boxes and I’m happy to say it lived up to the self-created hype in our minds.
Melissa invited me to travel with her to a small village in southern Sweden to visit her grandparents. Who can say no to Sweden with your best friend? I felt so lucky to spend time with her and her incredible grandparents. I learned about FIKA, stugas, herring for breakfast, and heard all the stories of growing up in an immigrant family.
Sometimes Josh gets an itch to get out of town and this trip was exactly that. He started researching national parks within a drivable distance and settled on the Voges du Nord area of France, about a 3.5 drive (4 with kids) from Maastricht. He found a cute small hotel with good reviews in the village of La Petite-Pierre and we packed our bags.
I’ve delayed writing about our weekend in Luxembourg not because it wasn’t blog worthy, but because it
Our final 3 nights were in luxurious Santorini. I felt like we went from the equivalent of Islamorada in the Florida keys to South Beach. From a laid back vibe to high end everything. I’ll admit, getting off the crowded ferry at the port, I questioned our selection of the island. There were so many people, buses, drivers, it was hard to even pick your name out from the sea of name plates being held up.
Today is one of those days of travel that becomes a good “story” later on. In the moment(s), though, it is often frustrating, tiring, and throwing kids’ feelings into the mix is just icing on the cake.
This was one of the first trips we’d planned after deciding to move to Europe. I was nervous it wouldn’t be as amazing as I’d hoped, but that was a silly fear…
Fitting in what we could on a 24ish hour trip to Amsterdam.
We keep thinking we had all we needed and finding out we are lacking something. Here’s our journey to opening that darn bank account!
Soujourns with Sarah 