TOSH World 2025: The Return - TOSH at VE 80

Apologies for the lack of communication over the last couple of days.  Being on the move to the total of 32,000 steps yesterday around Amsterdam can give you an idea of why.  The day prior we had a morning at one of the most amazing warfare museums I have ever seen, Overloon. Overloon was an extensive museum of collections from the area of items left over from the war. When I say items, that is underwhelming. There were hundreds of planes, tanks, guns in an area of the building, many of which still run. In fact, I think it is once as month, the owners who have donated the machinery are allowed to come in and play with their toys!!! We really needed a few hours at this museum to see everything, but with 1000 Canadian students there also and all hyped up to get to an amusement park, I was ok to leave when we did. Cue picture dump... Following Overloon and a short drive we let the kids loose at Efteling Theme Park, and it was a great way to end the days of heavy lifting repr...

   Yesterday was a heavy day and it is a good thing we arrived to our new lodging relatively early and an unreal buffet that stuffed most of them. Chicken wings and fires along with plenty of pastas and salads and of course breads and cheese. We couldn't go wrong. There was plenty of free time after supper for walking in the gardens and areas adjacent to the hotel in this wonderful forested town of Osterwjik. A couple of us chaperones even got into a little game of sewer ball before heading in for the night at 9:00 PM. Night night tonight is 11 because all of the schools are here and tomorrow is our biggest day at Bergen op Zoom. Good night from the Netherlands or good morning as I finish this. May 4th Liberation Day in the Netherlands is a day that the Dutch people finally were freed from the oppression of the Nazi regime from 80 years ago.  There will be people from the town of Bergen Op Zoom here today that have lived through the horrors that play out in our...

This morning we departed France and Belgium.  We stopped for a quick 90 minute shopping spree near Antwerp, and Euros were spent no question.  Mostly on time we get them back on the bus with their bags of clothes and shoes for some, lunches for others and nothing for some of us.  Our trip to the Netherlands will take a couple of hours and then we are in for some heavy thought provoking information as we visit Kamp Vught. Kamp Vught was one of three German concentration camps in the Netherlands during World War II . The other two were the transit camps Amersfoort and Westerbork . Camp Vught was located in the North Brabant town of Vught. It functioned as a concentration camp for over a year and a half. The stories that we are about to hear will be hard, but in one way these students are prepared with the fact that we were able to host the Holocaust exhibit in March at TOSH.  These lessons are necessary but still difficult to digest at such a young age, that is until...