How many kids can you fit in the roof of our camper van?

The answer is at least three! We picked up Jacob 's friend Gustav yesterday, the perfect opportunity to try out the new mattress. The foam arrived Tuesday so on Tuesday evening I knocked up a cover from it out of an old duvet cover. It was actually a hit of a faff. When I ordered the foam online they offered the option to order it with a fitting cover. But the cover was gonna cost more than the foam so I decided I would make one myself.

I have the necessary sewing skills but what I hadn't banked on is how difficult it is to manoeuvre a 125x130 piece of foam inside a material cover. It sort of sticks and gets caught and just frustrates the living hell out of you. So I ended up making a cover which pops together on one end - the opening end of the old duvet cover - and a long velcro strip down the side. This hopefully means we won't have any problems getting it in and out to wash. And if I ever feel like making another one I can just make a pattern from that one :-)

We put it in on Tuesday night and it just fell into place as if had always been there with a rather satisfying mini plop sound. The upside of having one big mattress with a cover is that sliding things in and out is now super easy as they just glide across the top.

And as you can see the kids live it up there!

First trip

We took our first trip in the van as a family! I'm still amazed at how much space there is. The kids can't physically fight anymore. They can only just about reach each other. It's so spacious I'm gonna have to work really hard not to fill it up with crap :)

We headed north out of Berlin not really knowing where we were going except that we wanted to eat ice cream and Rob wanted to try out Mandy on the Autobahn. 

We ended up heading to Oranienburg and had ice cream on the side of a lake in a boat/harbour restaurant here. 

A bit of a grey one, but we had fun all the same. Looking for signs of beavers at the waters edge and running obstacle courses through the woods.

When we got back to the van post ice cream and walk the kids wanted to try out their bed. So this is them. The reason Jacob is blurry has nothing to do with my camera skills and much more to do with how mush the sugar rush and excitement contribute to him wriggling about :)

That was when we had our idea for the second trip of the day. The idea was we would go home and get the two mattresses we had been planning on using on our bed, the computer so the kids could get comfy watching a film up top, and some bits and bobs so we could picnic in the van. And that is what we did. Picked up some chips on the way and parked in a nearby glamorous location (an Aldi carpark with a view of the canal :)). I then introduced the Germans to chip butties - an instant hit I might add- and we set about converting the van for sleeping, just for fun.

The kids lay down in the roof and watched a cartoon. We converted the seats into a bed to find that the folding mattresses we use for kids guests fit perfectly side by side to turn the folded down seats into a really comfy bed for us. We closed all the curtains, opened a beer and imagined ourselves somewhere other than Aldi car park. Then the computer ran out of battery and kids started kicking up fuss...

But the first inklings of the fun we are going to have in the van have been planted in all of us and now we only have to put up with Jacob asking daily why we can't sleep in the camper van tonight!