After the bustling city Beijing it was time for a bit more nature. So off I went with the girls into the Alps, more specific to the village Ladis in the Austrian Alps. It was quite spontaneously, but we were lucky and found a cozy apartment, where we felt home during our week in the mountains. Thanks Rainer for being such a warmhearted landlord and for making our stay in the Burgblick so nice! We had a lot of fun outside: Explored a witched trail, where an experiment has gone horrible wrong. Encountered giant snails and recognized animal tracks.

Of course, we also did some “normal” hikes in the beautiful mountain range. Some of them with Emily on my back (still fun), some of them without Emily on my back (even more fun). Thanks to Britta & Olav for lending out your back frame! It was really good, but we won’t borrow it again ;-) It was amazing to witness the joy that kids can feel about very simple activities, for example spotting trail markers. The little beautiful details they notice, that we grown ups often overlook. Basically, kids teach to live in the present moment, without worrying about the past or the future.

Aside from hiking, we mostly relaxed. Which included a few visits to the in-house Sauna. As in the Netherlands, Melanie proved to be a fantastic chef and I was pampered both by her cooking skills and the company of her and Emily. Thanks to both of the ladies for your lovely company during  a very nice and relaxed week in the Alps! Do I need to mention that we had sunshine weather? Yeah! We’ll hopefully return for some more advanced tours in the future. Anybody want to join in?

Greetings with a lot of fresh relaxing mountain air
Michael

PS: Unfortunately, the coolest pictures are “censored”. I won’t post pictures of Emily (at least not, where her face is clearly recognizable) without her consent (which is hard to get from a four years old).