Linnaeushof; Europe's Largest Playground

Yes, Europe has a huge, excuse me, gigantic playground right here in The Netherlands. Linnaeushof, the name of the playground, is situated a little less than a 15 minute bus ride from the bus station in Haarlem. Actually, we never would have gone there if we hadn't been meeting some people that day. We were thinking about meeting them in Delft, but my mom thought there would be nothing to do there so she started going through my large collection of brouchures that I had picked up at the tourist office during a visit to the train station. I had seen the brochure for Linnaeushof and picked it up because of the words stating "Europe's Largest Playground". Even in Dutch I can translate that much! So my mom found the brochure and didn't think anything of it until Carol,(a cousin of our family's friend Eric) suggested Linnaeushof as a place to go for the day. She had 2 kids and there was Siena and I so she thought it a perfect place for the kids to play and the adults to do boring parent talk. When we got there, we were amazed. I don't know what the rest of my family expected by I thought it would be like a European Coney Island. No, it was like a normal playground, except oversized with a waterpark addition. Like for an example, there was a Merry-Go-Round but someone had to hold onto a yellow bar and push it around. A Ferris Wheel powered by the most famous thing in The Netherlands, a bike. So you get the point. Even the Bumper Cars strung to the ceiling by a track were powered by the bike pedals at the front of the car! Almost nothing was mechanical, except for the Bumper Cars on the ground and the Zipline over the water. Anyway, enjoy the pics!