Holzbach - down on the farm

We arrived at our farmstay on Saturday afternoon. It's a small farm with 4 apartments, 2 small wooden lodges and a couple of camping/caravan places. Zach immediately found the gokarts and set off racing around. As well as all the farm type stuff, there is a huge labyrinth (about 10km if you walk the whole thing!!), a 'barefoot walk', huge play areas, a football pitch, slides, swings, sandpit.....pretty much everything 2 boys could need for a week. This was always going to be our quiet week - a couple of day trips but mostly just doing farm type things.

Saturday evening included a tour of the farm by the farmer and some homemade fruit wine - a good start!

8.30 every morning to feed the pigs and collect the eggs - Zach of course hasn't missed a day. He kept a running total of the number of eggs for the week and their differing colours!

We decided to head out on Sunday and so visited Cochem a little way along
the Moselle river. Nick and I had visited here while supervising a school trip when we worked in England so it was fun to revisit and try to remember what we'd done 13 years earlier! We walked up to the top of the hill and then went for a guided tour of the castle. Although medieval on the outside, it had been renovated in the 19th century so has the look of a French chateau on the inside.

After lunch by the river, we headed back to the farm to play football (Nick and Zach) and in the sandpit (Reuben and I).

Zach tries out the barefoot walk

Reuben takes up his regular position in the sandpit

Monday was a stay-on-the-farm sort of a day. Lots of outside play all day and lots of food as well! The baker's van arrives at 7.30 every morning ringing a bell to supply us with lots of yummy bread and cakes.

Tuesday we decided to head to Koblenz for the day but only got as far as sitting in the car as it refused to start. Nick, organized as ever, had arranged breakdown cover before we left Hungary so after a few phone calls and a couple of hours, Nick was at a local garage getting a new battery for the car. As we kept saying at various points this holiday, it was cheaper than a new laptop!

On Wednesday we decided to give it a second go and did actually make it to Koblenz. We wandered to the Deutsches Eck (where the Rhine and the Moselle meet) and then took a cable car across the Rhine to the fortress at the top of the hill. After taking the cable car back (Nick was very brave), we headed into the old town to get some lunch.

Deutsches Eck - you can see where the two rivers are joining together

We had an absolutely delicious pasta lunch washed down with a fabulous glass of Reisling. Back to the farm then for more running around/football/sandpit fun.

We decided to stay at the farm on Thursday and Friday (apart from a quick supermarket trip) and although the weather wasn't as warm as earlier in the week, it was still nice enough to be outside all day. We managed to take the short route in and out of the maze and also tried 'Bauerngolf' (farmer's golf) - you use a ball roughly the size of a small football with a broomstick handle with a clog attached to the end. Great fun.

Zach finished our farm week on Saturday morning as he had begun it a week earlier - racing around on gokarts.

Overall our farm experience was quiet but great. Exactly what we'd hoped for. Stuttgart next.