Drunense Duinen

Last Saturday, we went to Drunense Duinnen in The Netherlands for a walk with our family. It's a place where my husband spent his childhood with his father and his not so little brother now. It's a national park located about 30 minutes drive from where our family lives, somewhere between Waalwijk and den Bosch. I also like to return here as it's a peaceful place and even though there might be many people around you, they somehow spread around and you end up not seeing them at all.

A couple of weeks ago I shared here that my mother-in-law was placed in a hospice because she couldn't live on her own anymore. After several years of fighting cancer, she passed away last Monday and found peace. Like my husband said in his speech during the funeral, with her reputation she certainly has a window seat in heaven overlooking all of us.

On Sunday, his brother informed us that it's coming to an end. My husband drove to The Netherlands and spent the last night at his mom's bed. It was very difficult for both of them watching their mom dying, but they wanted to be at her side. Her lungs were giving up and she sounded like what my husband described as a coffee machine. Morphine wasn't helping anymore, so she got sleeping pills to ease her pain. In her condition it was not certain that she would wake up again, but she opened her eyes in the morning, saw her sons and left her body.

It was a beautiful funeral. The church was full, people spoke to us with so much love and we could see that the community loved her. It was even streamed on Youtube with almost 2000 views now. It might sound strange to mention it, but it is so special for us to see how many people loved her. She volunteered all around the town her entire life, and we expected many people, but honestly not sooooo many.

After the funeral, we decided to spend some time as a family, and this is why we went for a walk.

Drunense Duinen is a huge sandy area which is changing constantly. I didn't expect that we would go there, so I didn't bring the right shoes with me from Switzerland and could feel the sand between my toes all the time. Well...

Imagine walking on a beach for a LONG time. It's not easy, right? We spent a couple of hours walking around. Although, a lot of time was spent climbing the trees. My husband changes into a big child with our niece and nephew. We (adults) were waiting for them in the shade.

You can go hiking, jogging, mountain biking or even riding a horse. I must say that only walking gave me a good muscle ache the next day already.

We walked up and down the dunes looking for the biggest cones to bring home and decorate them as little Christmas trees for Christmas this year. My little niece always have these creative ideas.

In the past, when winters were colder in The Netherlands people enjoyed cross country skiing here. I can imagine that there could be amazing tracks here. My husband still remembers those times, but I can't imagine that with the weather changes we're facing this will ever happen again.

We were so lucky with the weather. It's a pain to walk around when it's hot and sunny, and we only had it hot. It was partly cloudy, so I didn't get a sunburn this time.

One of the trees that my husband climbed with the kids. He didn't have the right shoes either and was slipping a few times, but in the end there were no injuries.

The sand is moving and the landscape is changing, so I wonder if I would notice a difference if I took photos of the same place over a few years. The only problem is that as soon as we enter the park I get completely lost because it all looks the same to me. And I honestly don't believe that no family member would be able to find the place either.

Drunense Duinen mean so much to my husband and I can understand why. They didn't have much when they were kids, but they had a lot of quality time here, together.

It's been such a difficult time for all of us, but the life continues and we have to make the best out of it. Here, you can see where the fun started. The kids discovered a swing hanging on the tree. I thought that we would never leave there. Of course, it wasn't ideal as after about 30 minutes they got into an argument about who is going next which led into our departure as their parents got fed up 😊

But we had a good time nonetheless and the dinner after that wasn't too bad either.

This is not my typical post, but there are situation in life that I want to share here as well as writing helps me feel better.

Until next time...