The LeCroy's Invade the Continent

Day 1:

  Mike and I fell in love with the idea of living in Europe in 2005 while he was working in Germany. Traveling seems so much easier and cheaper and the possibilities of locations seem endless.  Once we got here, added another human to our family, and realized we still had everyday life to live that traveling all over became hard to plan. 

  BUT...after lots of planning, saving and some luck we made it to the Continent (France and Belgium to be more specific.)

  7 days, 6 nights, 2 countries, 4 humans and one compact 5 door car...

And you could still see out the back window! 

  Our adventure began early on Friday with making Liam skip his last day of school for the term and heading for the Euro tunnel. There are 3 ways to head to mainland Europe from this island: plane, boat or train. Lots of people recommended the boat option because you can get out and walk, hit the restaurant, etc. Who wants to chase two small kids around a boat for 2 hrs when I can make them stay in their seats, safely tucked in the car for 35 minutes?
  When we told Liam about our trip and the tunnel he got so excited. "That will be awesome! I hope I get to see some piranhas!" He was a little sad that A. the tunnel doesn't have windows (although that would be cool) and B. the English channel does not have piranhas. Still he was excited and we were all curious about what it would be like on the train.
 

35 minute train ride he takes a nap!

     The train ride was smooth with the exception of Luci screaming/screeching for at least 20 minutes of the ride. No big deal right? I wish! You must have all your car windows open half way for air cirrculation. Thankfully we will never see those people again!

Once we arrived in France we had to get used to driving on the wrong side of the road. Thankfully I didn't have to drive at all! Next stop was Menen, Belgium where we would see our accommodations. Hotels can get pricey when you are looking at 6 nights. Thankfully I happened upon a local ad for a vacation home in Menen for CHEAP! Mike and I were very skeptical but it turned out that it belonged to a US military reservists stationed here. He and his wife rent it to the military folks. It turned out to be a cute little 4 bed townhouse on 3 floors with the steepest, smallest, most dangerous stairs in the WORLD! Trust me...DANGEROUS!

After settling in we headed out to explore and find food. Note Luci's mode of transportation. The strollers were left at home due to lack of space in the car. Mike was cool with the idea of toting Luci around for a week and we made sure to buy a carrier that fit us both. It also helped this pack is made by a company Mike likes and Luci enjoyed it in the store. If you are in the market the LeCroy's recommend the Osprey Poco Plus. 

 We started looking for food and found chocolate. Chocolate trumps dinner when in Belgium.

Mike and I don't drink beer but this tower of kegs and bottles was impressive!

After some hesitation about language barriers we headed into the local Frites shop and ordered up a take away. I enjoyed my sandwich (below) but Mike and Liam didn't dig their burgers.

Please note the grade of these stairs. They were easily a 60 degree angle and super tiny wood steps. You had to treat them like you would a latter. They were also VERY painful to fall down!

Liam and I got this assorted bag of chocolate eggs from the local shop. They were all filled truffle style and delicious!

I promise the next post will have more interesting pictures but brace yourself. There are at least 400 pictures of the trip but I won't make you see them all.

Stay tuned for Day 2: Things Belgium Does Right: Chocolate and Parking Garages