On Monday, 9th September, 2024 our class went to a youth hostel in the Netherlands, called “Herberg Oer't Hout”. We met at 8 a.m., but the bus was late, so we waited a bit.

As the bus arrived it was kind of a mess, because we all wanted to have good seats. Luckily,  there were more seats than twice the size of our class, because it was a double-decker bus.

When we arrived, we were a bit confused. The bus was too big for the entrance and we couldn't see the hostel. After our teacher got out of the bus to check where it was, we all got out. He checked us in at the reception and we went up to our rooms.

There was a problem: the rooms of more than five people were tiny. We didn't have enough space to put our suitcases so that they weren't in the way. After we had made our beds, it was time for the first activity.

We did a rally of our small area, which we at first had to stop because it rained too hard.

After the rally it was dinner-time. We had smashed-potatoes with carrots and meatballs with a little sauce. In the evening, we had a game-night. Everyone brought games. We played with each other and the winner of the rally was announced.  That was our first day.

On Tuesday we started the day with a yummy breakfast of croissants and baguettes with cheese, jam and some vegetables. We drank cacao or water or some juices. After breakfast everybody got a bike and we started a long bike tour to Sneek. On this tour there were so many problems, the biggest being the strong headwind.  After we arrived everybody got a wetsuit and we tried waterskiing. That was so nice and funny. As everybody did some rounds of waterski, we drove back. On the return trip, we were more cautious, but it rained heavily.

In the evening we watched a football game. Germany played against the Netherlands. It was an exciting match, but nobody won. It was a draw (2:2). We also played a lot of games like ‘Werwolf’, ‘Uno’ and ‘Mensch Ärger Dich Nicht’. That was the second day.

On Wednesday, we took the train and visited a trampoline park called ”Jumpstyle“ in Leeuwarden. There was a ninja warrior parcour, many airtracks and a tower from which you could jump onto an airbag. We had a lot of fun to jump there. At the end most of us bought an ice cream. When we walked back to the station, it rained again! But after a warm shower, we had freetime. Some of us stayed at their rooms, but others went shopping. Nearby were a few shops. On this evening the class made a walk through Grou. The sunset was beautiful and all of us had fun.

On Thursday, we played a Mega Jenga, which is Jenga but with big bricks and did sumo wrestling. We wrestled in balloon-wrestling-suits which was pretty hard but very funny at the same time.

Later it stopped raining, so we went canoeing on the river behind our hostel - and nobody fell into the water! It was great because the view was absolutely amazing on the boat. We not only canooed on the harbour lake but also in a tight alley tightened by trees. The lake was so beautiful, that you sometimes took the wrong way because of it distracting you. If you didn't have enough energy on the canoe anymore, an electric boat would come and take you on a ride for about 5 minutes.

That was our last evening, so we did something special. We made groups of four and each group got a piece of paper. There were a lot of exercises like ”Tell an English joke“ or ”Rap about your favourite food“. We acted this out in front of our teachers and they gave us points. The winner was the group with the most points. All in all, it was an amazing day and a great night.

On Friday we went back home. Everyone was sad but happy, too. We just ate breakfast in Grou and then our bus picked us up and we drove back to Germany.

At the Gymnasium Heißen our parents and siblings were happy but class 7e was only tired. Thanks for this great time!

We are already looking forward to the next  trip. It was a great class trip.