With 3 boys under 5, there’s never a dull moment. Certainly never a quiet one… Buggy Blogger mum to J (4), B (3) and S (1) brings coals to Newcastle in Belgium this Easter.

Like it or lump it, the boys've all inherited a fair swag of their mummy – not least a fondness for cheese, chubby cheeks and a tendency to travel sickness (possibly all interlinked, a surfeit of one being the cause of another).

So the prospect of a partial Benelux mini break (staying with the Dutch relatives in a Belgian holiday park minus the Lux bit) came with mixed feelings. For one thing, there'd be a very long car journey to endure. For another, Edam and Gouda galore at the end of it. And some nice cheese too with any luck.

And so with a deep breath we set off. Wisely we avoided a repeat of the legendary 'the fast passenger ferry to Hoek van Holland’s been cancelled due to stormy conditions but your tickets are valid on the 8-hour freight boat' fiasco. Instead, we opted for the relatively safe car and Chunnel alternative as our means of travelling from A to B(elgium). And though I was armed to the teeth with old wives' tale travel-sickness remedies, the worst we suffered was a bit of apple-juice OD burp-back about 5 minutes outside Calais.

So far so good on the journey front then. But what of the destination? Well my urban lads were rather confused at a place where half the population gets around on bikes. And where … shock … no-one wears cycling helmets while J can’t get within an inch of his Fireball Racing Team Roadster without having his one firmly jammed on. And he at least has the sense to cycle on the right side…

And then there was the mix of languages. Bewildering, I think we can all agree, but I must say the boys each gamely had a go at integrating. J happily bonjoured everything that moved. And a fair few things that didn’t too. He also enthusiastically bade everyone to 'eat sparkler' 3 times daily – a pretty, explosive variation on the customary 'eet smakelijk' ritual which kicks off every meal.

Meanwhile S peppered conversations with his usual vehement chorus of 'da da, da, da!'s'. While we’ve for weeks been interpreting this as a eulogy to daddy, the Flemish contingent deduced that the little guy's in fact been attempting Dutch all this time with affable 'dag, dag' hellos to all and sundry. D'uh, so obvious in hindsight.

And while S was da da da-ominating conversation with his fledgling Flemish, B adopted the strong and silent approach to fitting in – getting stuck into Belgium's much feted chips and chocolate. What kiddie heaven to discover they … swoon … eat chocolate for breakfast! (Hagelslaag; chocolate sprinkles on bread – no kidding!)

As it was Easter we'd added to the general cocoa-fest by bringing a truck-load of Smarties eggs along. Coals to Newcastle in Belgium of course but I didn't hear any complaints.

And then as if there wasn’t enough chocolate flying around, the grandparents did what grandparents do the world over – spoiled their grandchildren rotten with a glut of extra gloop for good measure. On top of the Lindt eggs and bunnies, the last day saw the boys treated to chocolate ice-cream decked out with multicoloured hundreds 'n' thousands and a red sticky lolly garnish each.

Ugh.

One thing's for sure, by the end of the holiday the cheeks were chubbier and the tums were gurglier. And what with the smell of my trophy-Camembert wafting round the car it's nothing short of a miracle that we got home without recourse to our stash of sick bags.

Mmm. Happy Easter.

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