At the 3 border-area

 

After our good visiting day in Aachen with the family, there wasn't much left downtown to do unlike visiting many museums. The weather prediction was great so we decided to profit and go for some walks outdoors. We decided to head to the 3-country border, which is only like 5 kms from the city centre from Aachen. 

With some zigzag roads we climbed up Vaalberg, which is the highest point of the Netherlands and this little mountain is indeed the border where The Netherlands, Germany and Belgium touch.  
On the Dutch side there is many parking lots, some cafeteria and attractions, but of course it is the border stone that interested us most. In Instagram times, you are constantly in line there to make a picture.  So no time to be goofy and go spread on the floor over multiple countries. 

The road is actually named 4 border road as for 100 years also the independent Moresnet region was pointing here. 

Here I am hugging the Dutch highests point. 

Jan and the boys started to do a search itinerary that wasn't very clear at first and that made it hard for all 8 of us to keep following us while they went from left to right in a rather chaotic way.  But they succeeded in finding the treasure. 

The other 5 of us however gave up following them and we designed our own little walk. Therre are many  boards with itineraries but most of them were for cyclists and not all of the walking hikes had a loop that started at our location.  So I took resort to the "wandelknooppunten" and designed something on the Belgian hills in the territory of the historic Moresnet.  

Moresnet borderstone

While designing a walk from node to node is easy to estimate the distance, it gives no clue on the trail conditions. So at one point we were in big alleys in the woods but at others we made some steeper narrower descendt which was quite adventurous and challenging for my mother. But arm in arm, guided by the men before showing best step stones, we made it. 

We all reunited at one of the central cafétaria , where we enjoyed some unhealthy fried snacks and some sun . 

And then it was time to wrap up our family weekend for my mother's 80th birthday and drive back home.