Roadtrip

On week two of our holidays it was time to pack some bags and go on an adventure.

But first we had to collect Leah from the airport. Her flight landed Monday morning at 6.15am.  She had been in Greece on holiday and she had been up from 2am to make her flight, so when she got home, she just wanted to go to bed and sleep.  We did get to spend a lovely afternoon and evening with her before we packed our bags ready for our trip.

Tuesday morning found us up early (again) and ready to leave. We were going to Aarhus. Sara and Christian were out travelling and so they said we could stay at their place while they were gone. A cheap holiday for us!! (Leah was staying at home to look after the house and cats, plus she also had to work.)

We had a gift card for a hotel to use (one of our Silver Wedding gifts) and so we thought we would use it on the way to Aarhus. We would book into a hotel and break the journey up over two days. So Tuesday found us heading to a place called Kerteminde on the Island of Fyn, where Kristian comes from. 

We drove for a couple of hours before stopping for our lunchtime picnic. I had bought delicious sandwiches for us to eat.  

We had a lovely picnic down by the beach. It was wonderful not having any agenda, but just to go with the flow. When we were tired of sitting at the beach we started on our journey again.

 Around 2.30pm we arrived at our hotel. It was sooo cosy, set in a small town over looking the harbour. We checked into our room and then went out exploring to see what we could find. 

 We walked around the harbour and we loved seeing all the old buildings about the place.

There was live Jazz playing and we listened to that before heading back to our hotel for dinner. We had a delicious meal and both of us ate far too much.

 We had this fantastic view from our room. It had been  a terrific first day of our adventure.

On Wednesday morning we packed our bags again, had a delicious breakfast at the hotel and then headed on our way. Next stop was Aarhus.

 Aarhus has a museum called The Old Town where there are a collection of old buildings from different periods of time, taken from different areas of Denmark. It was sooo interesting. People were dressed up in clothes from the different periods.

 In the Bakery I got to sample cakes from original receipes from the late 1800s. The Baker´s wife even spoke and served me in the same manner as they would have done in that period of time. 

 I even got to try out a coffin. The people weren´t very tall back in those days so I´m glad to say I couldn´t use it - think I´ll wait a while longer before putting my order in for that! :-)

They also had a few things from the 1970s. Suddenly Kristian and I realised that we are now old enough to be in a museum!! :-)

 Kristian had one of these bikes when he was young. He was over the moon to see it again! 

 Above is a street from the 70s. It was sooo much fun to see things from our childhood. 

 The first car Kristian and I had was a Blue Beetle just like this. It was his aunts and she gave it to us as she never used it. We loved that old Beetle. 

 I found my old roller skates!! I nearly lived in those roller skates! Seeing those brought back a whole lot of good memories. I also found a photography shop and saw an old Ricoh camera. That was the first camera my dad bought me and again the memories came flooding back.

Kristian was in his element in an old Radio/TV shop from the 70s. It was fun to see all the old tapes and records that were displayed there and to see the how cheap everything was (compared to now!).

We had a fantastic afternoon there and when we had had enough, we did a little food shopping and then headed over to Sara and Christians. We made some dinner and spent the evening relaxing on the sofa. 

On Thursday morning we decided to head north to a place called Skagen. Neither of us had ever been there. It is a place in Denmark made famous by different artists. They say the lighting in Skagen is special. It is also the place where you can visit the very tip of Denmark, where the two Oceans meet. 

When we left Aarhus is was raining and gray but it was beautiful in Skagen. We were not disappointed with the nature and the lighting was special,  it had a sort of pink glow to it.

 We spent the afternoon on the beach, I collected stones and Kristian took photos. We got to stand at the very tip of Denmark where the two different oceans were crashing in around our feet. 

We had dinner in a lovely cafe by the harbour.  The harbour was packed with boats. I was glad that I was not the owner of the little blue boat below. I would have been stressed out!! What if I had wanted to sail out the next morning at 7am and the other boats were still there, how could I get out??? It was totally hemmed in .

Once we had seen enough of Skagen we headed to a place called Råbjerg Mile. Kristian had heard that this place was meant to be beautiful, so we headed there to check it out. 

 We were, again, not disappointed. It was absolutely amazing. The photos do not do it justice. It was like a huge sandbox!! There were mountains of sand, yet no sea. (I think its all the sand that blows in from the North Sea) We wandered up and down those dunes and enjoyed the beauty surrounding us.

 All this sand made me think of a verse from Psalm 139, 17 + 18  "How precious to me are your thoughts o God. How vast is the sum of them, Were I to count them they would outnumber the grains of sand."  

 As I meditated on that verse I was filled with such a sense of peace and awe. I felt sooo loved, so safe and so blessed to think that God had me on his mind sooo much!! 

After wandering in the sand for an hour or so we got in the car and headed down to the sea. We wanted to see the sun go down. 

 We got ourselves an ice cream and then sat down to watch God paint the most amazing sunset. 

We had an amazing day. When the sun finally had set, we left and started the long journey back to Aarhus. We first got back around 1am!!!

On Friday morning we had a lovely long sleep. It was then up to get ready and head out to see Vesterhavet (North Sea) We had read the weather forecast and it was to be rather blowy, so we thought that was a perfect time to see the North Sea. We had seen it on a good day, now we wanted to see it on a windy day.

We packed the car and decided that we would head West and see some of the areas we had never seen before. We would end the day at cosy restaurant and have a lovely meal for dinner.

Well things didn´t go exactly as planned!!!

We started out well. We had been driving for about 50 minutes when Kristian felt something go wrong with the car. 

There had been a car in front of us that was turning left, so we slowed down. As the car turned left we started to speed up again but our car sounded like it was in neutral. There was no pull or power in her. Kristian´s car is automatic so he was a little confused cause he hadn´t taken it out of Drive mode. 

We quickly pulled into the side of the road, turned off the car and then tried to start it again to see if that helped. It didn´t. We were stuck on some country road with a car that had no pull in her.  It started but the gears would just not work.

Arrrrgghhhhhh how annoying was that, especially since the car had been for a service a few days before we left.

Kristian was worried and I was hungry! :-) But hey, there was nothing to do about it, so we had a good talk about it and decided we should just make the best of it. 

In fact while we had been driving we had been listening to some Bible teaching about praising God in every circumstance, about not letting our circumstances get inside us, steal our joy and our faith in God. So this gave us a perfect opportunity to practise what we had just heard.

We rang Autohelp so a pickup could get us and take us to a garage.

 We then rang Sara´s Christian who works for Volkswagen to see if he knew what workshop we could use. Christian was amazing. He told us he would call us back. A few minutes later he rang to say that we had to take the car to his work, the workshop there would look at it on Monday and in the meantime he had arranged for us to borrow a car. 

We waited for just over an hour for the pickup truck to come get us and the car. Then it was an 1½ hour journey to the workshop where we would be dropped us. The man who picked us up was a wonderful old man (75years old). We had such a great time with him hearing his life story and sharing ours. 

 When we arrived at Christian´s work his colleagues had a car ready for us to use. They were so sweet and helpful. We felt sooo blessed. Everything had gone wrong yet it all worked out fine. 

There was no restaurant visit for us, we were tired and hungry and just wanted something cheap and quick. We found a KFC, which we haven´t had in years and had a quick bite to eat there before we headed home to Aarhus.

Since Friday didn´t go as planned we decided that we would try again on Saturday. We got ready and headed out again to see the North Sea. This time the journey went as planned and we arrived while the wind was blowing and the sky was gray. Just my kinda weather.

 I had a bit of a challenge getting down the "steps" I hate heights and so going down a steep hill scares me!! haha so I went down on my bum. Kristian pretended he didn´t know me! haha

After a walk along the beach we headed back to the car and drove around the area exploring places we had never heard of. The weather started to clear up, the gray skies started to disappear and the sun came out. 

 Denmark really does have some beautiful spots of nature.

 We had a great day out exploring. Another good memory made.

Today (Sunday) we have just been here at home. We have totally relaxed today. We have sat and talked, watched TV, read, listened to Bible teaching and played computer - sometimes together and sometimes we each just did our own thing.

We had hoped to head home tomorrow but now we have to wait and see what happens with the car. We are hoping its nothing serious, although it sounds a little serious and exspensive. (not good - so much for a cheap holiday!) 

Tomorrow we will know more and until then there is nothing we can do about it, so no point in worrying about it.