Mom and Dad visit us in The Netherlands!

Mom and Dad arrived at Schiphol Airport on Thursday, 28 August 2013.

 Because they had been up all night flying in, we decided to stay in town and show them around. We stopped for lunch along the Spaarne River.

Later on, we took Sammy for a walk in the Haarlemerhout.

Andrew was able to take Friday off from work, so we headed over to Amsterdam together.  We went to the Rijksmuseum, flower market and on a canal cruise.

The following day (Saturday) we headed to the market in the Grote Markt area of Haarlem.

We stopped for lunch at Stempels Restaurant:

 Sunday we decided to go to Duin and Kruidberg Estate for lunch, then over the Muiderslot to go through the castle.

Duin and Kruidberg:

Muiderslot:

Monday morning Andrew headed back to work. Dad, Mom and I did some sightseeing. Monday we went to Zaanse Schans:

 We went inside the wood mill:

 We also went into the Zaans Museum where we learned about the Verkade company.

The next day (Tuesday) we went to the Corrie Ten Boom house in Haarlem:

 Then headed over to St. Bavo's church where we were able to go inside:

After lunch we went over to Brinkmann's Restaurant for some lunch. The weather was delightful, so we were able to sit outside and enjoy people watching!

The following day we walked over to the last remaining Haarlem Gate:

Wednesday, September 4th we went back into Amsterdam. We went to the Anne Frank Huis and the Heineken Experience!

The Tulip Museum:

Heineken Experience:

Thursday, September 5th we went to Zanvoort aan Zee and had a nice lunch!

 On the train from Haarlem to Zaanvoort:

Friday we decided to stick close to home since we were planning to leave the following day for Sweden. We had lunch at the Nurks Restaurant in the Hout:

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Saturday, September 7th

We wheeled our suitcases up to the Gedempte Oude Gracht and took the #300 bus to Schiphol. Our plane departed at 0920hrs for Oslo, so we arrive at the airport around 0800hrs.

When we arrived in Oslo we picked up our rental car (a VW station wagon) at Europcar Rentals with the agreement that it would be returned in Oslo Center when we were finished with it.

We loaded up the car with our belongings and then suddenly realized that we were locked out of the car with the keys inside the car!  Soooooo, we found an attendant who went to the office and returned about 15 minutes later with a spare.  Then, off we went heading towards Sweden!