I should have known the holiday was going to be eventful when I packed the sat nav but forgot the charging cable. There we were, three hours into the drive to Thale in the Harz, and the device died just as we hit the winding roads of Lower Saxony. My partner gave me that look. You know the one. The children immediately started asking if we were lost, which of course we were, though I refused to admit it for a solid twenty minutes of increasingly desperate country lane navigation.

We found our way eventually, rolling into Thale with the sort of relief you feel when you spot a petrol station after the fuel light has been glaring for miles. The cottage sat on a gentle slope with the kind of timber framing that makes you feel like you've stepped into a Brothers Grimm illustration, minus the sinister bits. I half expected a gingerbread roof, though the actual red tiles did nicely enough.

The key was in the lockbox as promised, which felt terribly modern and efficient compared to my medieval navigation skills. Opening the door, we were hit by that particular smell of wooden holiday home: a mix of pine, slightly damp wool from the blankets in the chest, and whatever cleaning product they use to convince parents that children can indeed eat off these floors. The living area opened straight into a kitchen that looked compact but workable, with a dining table already set for four in that optimistic way holiday lets have, as if you might actually sit down to a civilised meal rather than shovel sausages onto plates while arguing about whose turn it is on the tablet.

My daughter made a beeline for the bedroom with the bunk beds, which was predictable. My son investigated the bathroom with the intensity of a health inspector, then announced the shower was "adequate," high praise from a twelve-year-old. I stood in the middle of the main bedroom and realised I'd packed three jumpers each but no tea towels. This is my special gift, this selective packing blindness. I can remember the board games and the walking boots and the specific stuffed rabbit that must not be left behind, but practical items for actual living? Gone from my mind entirely.

We made do with a bath towel for drying dishes that first evening, which felt appropriately chaotic. The cottage had a small terrace out back, and we sat there with our supermarket-bought supplies as the light faded over the wooded hills. Someone, somewhere, was having a barbecue, and the smell drifted over in that teasing way that makes your sausages feel inadequate. The children were too tired to bicker properly. My partner and I held mugs of something warm and looked at each other with that particular expression of holiday survivors: we made it, we're here, the worst is surely over.

The next morning I woke to my daughter standing beside the bed at an ungodly hour, already in her walking shoes, demanding to know when we could explore the Bode Gorge. The Harz was waiting, and despite the sat nav debacle and the tea towel situation, I felt that loosening that comes with proper time away. No work emails. No school run. Just the immediate, slightly scruffy pleasures of a family cottage and whatever small adventures we might stumble into next.