Centerparcs

Last Monday to Friday Ron, Wonder and I spent a wonderful midweek in the Kempervennen in Westerhoven. We had a lovely cottage with free view on the back. The weather was great: very cold, but sunny and dry. The trees on the park looked beautiful with white frosted branches.
The Aquadome was great: pool with waves, a huge slide, wild water track and a coral bath to snorkel. We always ended with a dip in the hot whirlpool. Wonder also went to the sauna. I was a bit reluctant to show myself in only my swimsuit, I felt like a whale. Then again, I didn't want to let that spoil my stay, so I took a deep breath and 'just' went. I don't regret it though!
We took the dogs with us, but the cats stayed home. I missed them a lot but there were "replacements" to keep me busy. :-) Around 10 cats were wandering on the grounds. The first night I gave them some dog snacks, but the next day I bought a big bag for cats in the foodstore. In the early morning and in the evening they came to eat. Two little ones, a black and a black-and-white one, came in to warm themselves. The other cats sometimes came too. The black one even played with a thread. I enjoyed having them around.
Not too far from our cottage was habitat with two otters. They had a hill with corridors and some warm nests. The also had their own water, but that was mostly frozen. Everyday at 1.30pm they were fed. I made a lot of pictures and a movie. They were so cute! They are very good taken care of; that is checked often. They certainly seemed to be happy.
We didn't leave the park, really making it a week to relax and recharge. We went bowling for an hour, spent some time in the gamesroom, drank something on a terrace in the Marketdome a few times and did some shopping. The last evening we went out for dinner at Howard's, the family restaurant.
There was only one problem: I got homesick! the planning was to spend these days in the cottage and then go with Wonder to celebrate Yule on the Brookberg. To tide over the gap we would spent one night in Nijmegen at a friend's place. I didn't feel good about it. I just wanted to go home. I even thought about not going to the Brookberg. In the end we found another solution: Friday I went home with Ron and saturday I took the train to Nijmegen, where Wonder would pick me up to drive to the Brookberg. I was very relieved when that was decided!
All in all we had a good week, we enjoyed ourselves and relaxed after all the stress lately.