A weekend in Oosterhout

The first family trip was down to Oosterhout in the southern area of the Netherlands. In simple terms, we stayed in a rental house park. A family rents an entire house with shared backyard space, where one can relax and enjoy the outdoors. Since we went early October, it was pretty cold and even a bit rainy at times. Still, it was cozy on the inside and there were plenty of snacks to have with tea.

The park was impressive in scale and right behind it was a thick forest were we took the dogs for walks. Snowy and Lucky, two half breed Stabyhouns, were right at home after the first night there. We all took turns walking them through the park and got to have some time walking the grounds. There’s also a section for camping, but we took the vacation home. Some of us would never opt for the camping route… We aren’t into roughing it out in the cold outdoors.

Oosterhout is pretty close to the Netherlands/Belgium border so when we ventured out, we visited the town of Baarle-Nassau and ended up shopping in Belgium and then having tea and cake in the Netherlands.

The town was small but it lay right on the border of the the two countries. Some shops had the Netherlands flag while others had the Belgium flag. There were even a few that had both and advertised products in both Dutch and French (they speak French in Belgium) on their fliers. The whole experience was a bit surreal! The historical landmarks were fantastic to see as well. There was even a candy store that we popped into and bought some interesting looking gummies.

The vacation park also had an arcade and a small bowling alley. We all took turns on the alley as we shared the balls with the other families around us. Meals were pretty simple, snacks and fries from the bar but we only bought snacks the first day. The rest of the trip we had home cooked meals or ordered fast food. The goal of the trip was to get away and be with family and I’d say we accomplished both of those objectives.