We have arrived!

Hello there! We are safely in Leuven. The kids and I are doing the tourist bit while Todd goes to the office for meetings. We are settling into our new apartment. The kids’ rooms are set up. We bought a few new rugs to try to reduce the echo. And BEST of all, the Internet was connected last night, so now I can tell you about it! 🙂

Our adventure officially started on Friday evening. We checked seven bags/boxes (thankfully British Airways allows 2/person).

Super Shuttle picked us up and took us to the airport.

We all tried to sleep a bit on the plane. Some of us were more successful than others.

Naturally, we had to stop in the Harry Potter store while we were in Heathrow.

We arrived in Brussels on Saturday afternoon. We picked up our rental car to drive to Leuven. I sincerely wish I had taken a photo of the car before we left the airport, but Isaac was sick to his stomach from exhaustion and I had more pressing concerns on my mind… Remember the 2 big boxes from the first photo? They each held 50+ pounds of books, games, etc. We had to fully unpack both of them and wedge everything in around the other bags so we could fit stuff in the car. Laine was a trooper! She was squished among huge suitcases, bags hovering over her head, and a puking brother. She didn’t complain for a second.

When we got to the apartment, Isaac went straight to bed. It was about 4:00 p.m. So… he woke up (and accidentally awakened his sister) at 1:45 a.m. At 3:15, I gave up and we decided to have something to eat. We ate some of the leftover snacks from the plane.

The following day was Sunday, so Todd was home and we did a little exploring with him. First stop, of course, was waffles!

Saying hello to our neighbor the, the Baker.

We also found a toy store and a home decor shop within a couple of blocks of the apartment. We took the kids to see the enormous church just a block away and the beautiful old Town Hall that shares the Grote Markt with it. We went for a short drive to explore the areas outside town. We finished the evening with some fantastic burgers and fries before heading home for an early bedtime.

Monday morning Todd had to go to the office for meetings. The kids and I walked through the toy store again and then went to the home store (twice!) to get a few things for the apartment. The apartment is quite large with wood floors throughout, so I needed a few soft items to try to dampen some of the echoes. Apparently, cacti are currently en vogue here, so we thought that particular bit of whimsy was hilarious having arrived from Texas.