The trip home

After all the adventures we have had with trains over the last week we asked Graham if he would rather drive us to Hamburg for our flight (rather than us taking the train with all our luggage).
The photo on the left is one I got off the internet - beautiful isn't it. We took the photo to the right of some of the gantries we saw. It was so strange to see such a big harbour so far from the sea.

Hamburg is over 100km from the sea but is still the largest port in Germany and the 3rd busiest port in Europe. No wonder it caught our attention.
We took a short flight down to Frankfurt and then had the first long flight to Shanghai.

We had our first ever flight on a huge double decker Airbus. Not only was the aircraft huge - it was also overbooked. They were asking people who could - to take the next available flight. There were so many Chinese people obviously heading home after a weekend of shopping in Germany. They didn't just have their 1 hand luggage bag and 1 extra small bag - they generally all had 3 big bags - one at least a big shopping bag.
It made me a bit nervous - thinking about this massive aircraft having to get into the sky - along with all this extra luggage.

It was incredible though. Out of all the flights the take off and landing seemed the most effortless and definitely the quietest. It was a wonderful experience.

Thankfully Asher did fit in a bassinet and she had a good sleep for this first flight that was through the night for us anyway.
With her not only having her two AEDs but also ibuprofen as often as she could - it was quite a detailed list that I kept of times, medication and dose.
Her doctor had said that we could up her long term AED from 5ml BD to 7ml BD if necessary, but when we gave her 7ml on Saturday evening it made her so drunk and kept her from sleeping. We decided to rather spread the 14ml over 24 hours in 3 smaller doses. This worked better through Sunday and Monday and then we got her back to her old dose.

Thankfully she was feeling ok in Shanghai for our almost 3 hour layover.
These moving walkways were close enough to escalators for her - so she enjoyed them just as much. :-)
And although I am sure we still had her shoes at this point - somewhere in the next 12 hours one of them got lost. Yes, just one.
The flight from Shanghai to Auckland was an Air New Zealand flight and we were so thankful for this. They really are a great airline. We had ordered a "baby meal" with all the flights but there was not any guarantee there would be any food for her.

With this flight they actually brought her two big bottles of baby food on a try as they started handing out meals. And it was such a blessing as she was really not feeling well on this flight but managed to eat the fruit ones. So it made me feel a bit better knowing she had something extra in her tummy. There was no way she had energy to chew anything.
She slept most of the flight other than when she was awake and uncomfortable. So I kept a careful note of all the medication she was giving - making sure we adjusted to each time change as we travelled.
When we got to Auckland we sorted out our different connecting flights to Christchurch as Brendon was staying to take a later flight with the other children. Then I found a pay phone and called the hospital to get their advice on Asher. I wondered if I needed to bring her to the hospital when I arrived in Christchurch. She had already had a fever for almost 3 days.
I had a good chat with them and they felt it was not necessary to do anything more than what we were already doing. That was a great comfort. She suggested that if there was no improvement in a few more days - that we could just get to the local doc to see if antibiotics were then necessary.
It was great to have Noortjie at the airport when we arrived. It was nice for me to have the company and helped the time to pass more quickly.
The children and Brendon arrived safely and we all headed home together. Added to the business of the day - Rachel had her ballet and St John stuff all ready in our car - so we dropped her off at ballet on our way through Amberley. She had missed 2 weeks and so didn't want to miss another. :-)

Our last days in Ottersburg and Asher's seizures

Graham and Aleks live in the top left apartment. A lovely spacious 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom home.
After much discussion on who would join Aleks and Michael and the Mother Centre for a late breakfast, Brendon finally offered to come with. I was very nervous about driving a tandem (on the front) with Aleks, Michael and Asher behind me. So off we went.
Graham stayed behind to make lunch for the Play Centre where Zophia was, as it was their week to provide.
Asher was getting tired and as we were about to leave Michael needed to feed. So Aleks said she would be fine making her way back home on the single bike and we could take the tandem.
This week we have been chatting to Graham and Aleks a lot about how to deal with her disability (she only has 5% sight in one eye and is blind in the other), and how Graham needs to not try and protect her too much. So this was a good example of it. I was not sure how she would manage (and felt that desire to be "over-protective") - but she was confident that she would be fine - and she was.
So Brendon and I got to ride the tandem. I was glad to hear I was not more wobbly than Aleks (who is so experienced on it). :-) I was also thankful that Brendon quickly realized that it was easier for me if I knew that a turn was coming up. Otherwise it would take me by surprise and I would think we were falling. I also had to remind myself that just putting our legs out we would be stable. It was fun. Thanks so much Graham and Brendon for getting me out there to try it.

I think Asher had a bit of a powder rest on the ride home though and couldn't get to sleep once we were home. So Brendon said he would take her outside for a while. We really bundled her up but she got her mittens wet as soon as she got out there. She just loved the sandpit though and had a ball.
Brendon had the iPod with his current audio book on - so at least he was entertained too. :-)
Below: Going exploring. What a beautiful "back garden" and view.

The wind then picked up so they had started heading in. Unfortunately just as they got close to the house - Asher had a 2 minute Tonic Clonic seizure. I heard the doorbell ring a few times and guessed what was happening. We quickly got her upstairs and comfortable. Once it stopped we had to get all the sandy clothes off and then she had a sleep next to Dad.
So it may have been a combination of a few things that have happened before: A few small slides at the Mother Centre in the morning, being over tired, getting cold (although just her hands were cold), and the fact that it's been 2 weeks since her last one (which seems to be the pattern lately).
Her first one was at 2pm and then at 4:20 she had a 1 1/2 min vacant seizure. Graham and I had gone to do some shopping. I always hate coming home and hearing she has had a seizure while I am out.
It was quite an experience for Aleks to be there. She has epilepsy too and she got quite emotional being there with Brendon and Asher. She told me afterwards that she never knew what Graham goes through. She often asks him to talk about it afterwards - but I think it's just too emotional for him - and now I think she may understand that.
At 5pm she had another 1 min Tonic Clonic. So at that stage - although it would normally be another hour and a half before her evening meds - we gave her one of the meds now. That thankfully settled things down for a few hours.
The photo to the right was after she woke from a nap after a seizure. I went down to give her a hug and she just held on. What a wonderful cuddle from such a precious little girl.
At 1am however she had a 1 min vacant seizure. I noticed her temperature was up and decided to just check how high it was. It was 38.5 and I just decided to rather give her some children's ibuprofen to try drop the temperature. We know from the cluster at the end of August that the high temperature does increase the chance of more seizures.
She slept well till 5:20 and then had another 1 min vacant. Temp was down to 37.5 - so that was good. I decided to give her the morning dose of her meds as it had now been over 12 hours since her evening dose. It does need a bit of time to "kick in" unfortunately - so she ended up having another 2 min Tonic at 5:30 before the meds did their thing and quietened things down.
By 6:30 her temp was back up to 38.5 - so I gave her more ibuprofen to bring that down again.

I didn't get a photo - but on Monday when we arrived we walked
down to the barn to get milk. Asher loved the dog and the cows.

We were all quite shocked and upset when at 12:10 (midday) she had a 1 1/2 min Tonic Clonic. This was the 7th seizure in less than 24 hours. I think we were all thinking the cluster had stopped. We did loads of calling and information gathering to our options. Graham spoke to a number of people at different local hospitals and I even got to phone our hospital in NZ (thanks to Graham's Skype calling that he has set up). I will summarise by saying that it was a very stressful and emotional time for me and I had to really trust that the Lord had all of this in His hands. I was praying fervently that the seizures would stop as Asher would need to be seizure free for at least 24 hours before flying.
During all this mayhem Graham prepared an amazing lunch of venison. The farmer had shot a deer and so this was really "local" food. There was meat left over which Graham transformed into the most amazing soup. I can honestly say it was the best soup I have ever had. Thanks for all your effort Graham. It was all very much appreciated.

Enjoying breakfast together on Sunday morning before we left.

On Saturday afternoon Brendon and Graham headed off to a pharmacy to get us a few things. More ibuprofen (as we had almost used everything Graham had) as well as Belladonna (to try tackle the fever naturally) as well as Hepar Sulph (for our sore throats as well as Asher's). So Asher was highly medicated through the next day - but the seizures had stopped.
Praise the Lord for answered prayers.
We were so relieved on Sunday to be able to be packing and heading home. Not because we wanted our visit to end - but we just wanted to get our sick little girl home. Thankfully now all we had to deal with was her fever and sore throat. Nothing that would interrupt travel plans.

I wish I had gotten some photos earlier in the week when Asher was still well. But we made the most of our last hours together and got some nice ones.

Thank you so much Graham and Aleks for having us. We had a wonderful time and enjoyed getting to know your precious children.

Amsterdam part 2

Brendon, Asher and I headed back to the boat as my back was starting to take strain from carrying Asher through her nap time.
We took these photos (left and below) from the same spot. Such a unique city.

And we took this photo of the boat we were staying on. A deceptive shot as it looks like the masts are part of our boat. ;-)

One with the name of the boat.

Our tiny little 4 bed room.
The photo is a bit deceptive as the gap between the bottom and top bunk was not as small as this looks and even Brendon was comfortable under me. Asher slept with me and Graham and Aleks had one child on each of their beds. The beds were long enough too and Brendon managed fine. The top bunk just looked really short because of that wall. We found the beds really comfortable and felt it was a great choice for accomodation.

Graham and Aleks brought some cheese and meat for us to have with bread for dinner (gluten free bread for us three). It was lovely to just sit and relax and talk to the other guests who were all very friendly. It was a lovely spacious dinning room and the coffee machine was on and it only cost 1 Euro for a cup.
The coffee is a bit of a story too. Germans like their coffee VERY strong. So although we were adjusting - we still added a bit of hot water to the machine made coffee. It sure is growing on us though.

Brendon went on deck to take some photos in the evening.

This is the biggest floating chinese restaurant in Europe.



Below: The view of the main road. We were far enough away to not hear any traffic. It gave beautiful lighting though.

Breakfast was included with the accommodation and we enjoyed plenty to eat. Cheese, meat, hard boiled eggs, bread (she even had rice crackers for gluten free people which I thought was cool) with loads of toppings as well as cereal, yoghurt and free coffee.
Brendon and I got packed up quickly as we wanted to get to have a canal tour before our train left at mid day.
One interesting thing that was pointed out was these hooks at the top of the houses (I put the red circles around them). They are for hoisting furniture up to get through the windows as the stairs are normally too narrow.

Loads of house boats along the canal. It was amazing to hear how many there are in Amsterdam.
The tour "guide" was a recording and it played in every language of the current passengers. So the driver just checked languages as people got on and programmed it to play accordingly. We had at least 4 or 5 different languages represented on our boat.

Above: This was the best we could do. The ideal would have been having another boat heading down towards us (which we saw at the previous bridge).
Left: We saw a few draw bridges too.

More modern apartments blocks.
We ended up not going past Ann Frank house but heard from Graham that they ended up on a canal tour too and did go past it. It wasn't anything really special to see. So we didn't miss out on much. It was a lovely experience and we got to see a lot and learn a lot about the city.

Just some photographic proof that it was us. :-)
When we got to the open water he sped up quite a bit. It was interesting to see how fast the boat could go. I was thankful it wasn't too bumpy though as Brendon does get sea sick.

Our train trip home was even more eventful than our trip up. Most of it went fine - with the girls running up and down and having a great time. The issue arrived when we got to Bremen and had a car that needed to get home. This time Brendon and Zophia went with Graham in the car and Aleks and I anticipated about a 15 to 20 minute wait for Graham to get them home and then come and fetch us at the Ottersburg station.
What we did not anticipate was the amount of traffic there would be. The normal 30 minute drive took them well over an hour. Then there was an accident between the Ottersburg station and their home - so Graham could not even get through to us.
Aleks wanted to walk home within 5 minutes of us arriving. I felt we needed to wait (and didn't like the thought of carrying Asher all that way).
After feeding Asher though (my milk was the only thing available for her dinner) and waiting an hour - I agreed that we had no choice but to start walking. Asher was now ready for a sleep - so I needed to have her in the sling anyway.

We spotted many of these "double story" bike racks. I got a photo from the train on the way home.

A canal on our way home. We also saw windmills but could
not manage to get a nice photo of one.

I felt better walking along the road so that we could spot Graham (and have some light). We then saw the accident and were very relieved that it was not Graham's car involved.
Eventually we stopped at a Chinese diner to buy some food to take home with us and Aleks checked her phone again. She was surprised to see a missed call from Graham. She quickly called him back. They had gotten home, he had tried to come but seen the accident and gone back home. Charged his phone and tried to call. He quickly came and picked us up (now that we were passed the accident he could get to us) and we were VERY thankful to all be reunited and enjoy a lovely Chinese dinner - TOGETHER. What an adventurous and full two days we had.

Amsterdam part 1

Brendon spending some time with happy little Michael while his parents did their last bit of packing for our world-wind trip to Amsterdam.
We were up early and got the two trips to the station done on time. Graham then wanted to just check that we had everything and asked if I had the bahn card. I didn't. I knew he had bought this for me for our train trip to them, but didn't realize that it was also used for this booking. So the decision was quickly made that he, Asher and I would go back to the house, get that and then drive to Bremen to meet them there for the next connection. We didn't have time to get to the house and back for the the Otterburg train's planned departure time. The train ended up being 20 minutes late - so we would have made it - but as Graham's phone went flat - they could not call us to let us know.
Graham and I had a nerve-racking trip to Bremen. There was so much traffic and it was pouring with rain. We knew what time the next train was due to leave and we only just had enough time to make it. We had planned to park at a shopping centre - a 5 minute bus drive from the train station.

I love this photo at the train station - with Dads and daughters.

We parked and knew we only had about 15 minutes. Graham mentioned that there were 2 trains, one took 5 minutes and the other took 15!!!! So we HAD to make sure we got on the right one. He checked the map and realized we were at the wrong bus stop. So we quickly crossed two roads and got to the right one. Thankfully the rain had eased by now and we didn't get too wet. We were also very pleased to see the bus was due to arrive within 2 minutes. We got on the correct bus (5 minute drive) and found Brendon, Aleks and the other 2 children waiting at the entrance. We made our way to the platform and found that our train was late. So all that rush for nothing. :-) It sure did add to the adventure of it all. ;-)

The train was not very busy, so we had loads of space. We had the 4 seats opposite this too.

Welcome to Amsterdam.
And what a beautiful central station. We arrived around 1pm and our first goal was to find a place for lunch. We had been advised to stay off the main road (tourist prices) and rather head down the smaller streets to find more value for money.


Below: Crossing our first canal and what a great view of these very typical Amsterdam houses.

Everyone seemed to recommend a canal tour - and we spotted one of them here. Our plan is to do that tomorrow. At least you get an idea of what it looks like from the outside. :-)

So we got to the smaller streets and started our search for a place for lunch.

Our first thought was fish (as Asher loves fish) but we ended up at a steak house. One big sales point was the "sit down and eat" aspect as we just wanted to get everyone fed asap. The food was delicious and the spare ribs and chips reminded us of Spur Steak House in South Africa. Even the lighting was like Spur. So funny that we would get this experience in Europe (taking us back to many memories growing up in SA).

Then we made our way to our accommodation for the night. On a boat! The value for money for this was excellent. We knew it would be small but I was really excited about this. What a unique experience.
Our check in was early in the afternoon - so we were able to drop off our bags and explore the town more easily.

Some of the boats around us. Brendon knew Rachel would especially like this one.

And this is how close we were to the station.

Asher having a chat to Michael before we headed out again.

We had their double stroller with - so the girls rode in that for a while.
We managed to find a ATM to get some cash and had a good laugh. Graham went first and I thought it was in Dutch - so I was trying to follow along. I then put my card in and it was all in English. Graham said his actually came up in German - but he was thrown because he was expecting Dutch. While other machines we used would ask for our language preference first, this clever machine just read the card to know what language to use.

Left: Girls having fun together.
Right: The streets were much busier now and we had quite a few experiences with the cyclists. It's funny that I would get this guy in the photo though - I think he was the only person we saw on a racing bike - with a helmet. Most of the bikes are like those below - with wide handle bars that allow you to sit upright while you ride. And helmets are not a legal requirement here or in Germany as they are in New Zealand.

A lovely one of Brendon and Asher at one of the canals.

And then Graham and his family with a very busy street behind them.

As a friend well put it - this street was really clogged up. :-)

Doing the real tourist thing. :-)



Below: We got into the centre of town to see the Palace on Dam Square. A nice opportunity to have a photo with my brother. :-)
Soon after this we gave up the hope of reaching Ann Frank House and so Brendon, Asher and I headed back to the boat. I will leave the rest of the photos for the next post.