Holiday!

I may not have been very active on steemit lately, but I'm not gone yet! I haven't painted or written for awhile and the little I have done doesn't seem like it's worth sharing here, or on any platform out there.

The best thing that has happened in a while was our (short) holiday and trip to La Roche: a small town in southern Belgium.

This was our first camping trip with the kids: the oldest is nearly 6, the youngest 3 and 1/2 years old and they very much enjoyed all of camping's aspects: sleeping in a tent, barbecue at the camping and exploring the river near the camping:

The river is The Ourthe, and, yeah, there are a lot of tourists here, but you can see why: the water's refreshing, especially with this summer's heat. People just placed their seat in the river. I took the boys for a slow floating trip here:

The water was between 10 to 50cm deep. The bottom of the Ourthe is filled with rocks, so it can be tricky to stay upright while walking in the river.

The town of La Roche is small but cozy. It has a medieval castle, which is certainly worth a visit (even though the admission-price was more than enough... :-/

On the day we visited the castle, there was a castle-run going right through it. Runners could participate and choose between 12-24-36 or 48 (!) kilometres. The race went through the castle and town, as well as over the hills which surround La Roche:

Over the last few months, I've been building back my running-skills, and I can now run 6.5 kilometres comfortably. I may be candidate to participate in this castle run next year. You can all hold me accountable for that!

La Roche means The Rock and I presume the castle was built on the Rock after which it was named. This rock:

My kids found a hole in the wall which of course was way more interesting than the Rock itself!

This catapult looked like it could be put to use instantly.

But sadly, we weren't allowed to shoot watermelons into town.

The obligatory dungeon and my oldest climbing back out!

There was also a small show at the castle, showcasing some birds of prey: a hawk, a cara cara, and this vulture (on the left):

The castle also sports a ghost, Berthe, but there was very little information about it.

Ghosts, castles and a barbecue at the camp site, what more do you need?

I hope you enjoyed reading, I sure enjoyed the trip!