Last day of the roadtrip today. Tonya and I got up early to start cleaning out the van and transferring everything over to our car while the kids played in the campsite park.

We drove the 30 minutes to Mannheim to drop the van off from where we had started 30 days ago. The van had done a total of 5109km (3175 miles) so including the 968 miles we had done in our own car getting to the van the roadtrip was a total of 4143 miles.

Sailed through the handover so we were heading home by 10.30am for a late evening Eurotunnel crossing. I have always wanted to see the northern France war cemeteries and Menin Gate ceremony so we went to Tyne Cot which is one of the largest in the area. Apart from a rough trip through Brussels the roads were clear and we arrived at Tyne Cot by 5.

The mood was very solemn especially with the kids understanding how many people had fought and died. The kids wrote in the guestbook on the way out. Hannah said “We will remember you xx” and Robert wrote “At times of great sadness there is always a spark of hope”

Back to the car and 10 minutes down the road to Ypres. Beautiful town and we stopped for dinner at Ypres Burger. Highly recommended.

The Last Post ceremony at 8pm was brief but very moving. Afterwards we sought the name of a grandfather of a good family friend on the Gate and Hannah found her namesake. We were surprised by how many Coupers on the memorial.

We definitely want to come back and perhaps as a long weekend as it is so close to home.

It was an easy 90 minute drive to the tunnel where we hit long queues to get through passport control.As it was late on a bank holiday monday I was expecting it. We had a 10.50pm crossing booking but missed that and got straight on to the next train once through so arrived back in England just before midnight. We finally got home at 1.30am in the morning with both kids fast a sleep in the back.

I went to sleep at about 3am and headed to work 4 hours later.

Simon