I have never been so relieved to see a sat nav give up on me as I was driving into Kirchheim in Hesse. We had been on the road since dawn, the kids had already eaten their body weight in Haribo, and my partner had that particular set to his jaw that meant he was approximately three wrong turns away from suggesting we just turn round and go to Centre Parcs instead. Then the sat nav, in its infinite wisdom, decided our cottage was located somewhere inside a field of very unimpressed cows. We spent ten minutes doing a three-point turn on a lane barely wider than a dinner plate while a local farmer watched from his tractor with the kind of patient amusement that only comes from seeing this exact scene play out a hundred times before.

The cottage itself, when we finally found it, was one of those solid German farm conversions that looks like it has seen off Napoleon and a fair few winters besides. Whitewashed walls, dark timber beams, and a garden that had clearly been loved by someone with far greener fingers than mine. My daughter immediately claimed the upstairs bedroom with the sloped ceiling, which she has since renamed "the attic of destiny," and my son discovered the garden football goal with a shout that probably reached Frankfurt.

What struck me first was the quiet. Not the awkward, oppressive quiet of a place with nothing going on, but the proper, deep hush of countryside that has nothing to prove. Birds, breeze, distant church bell, the lot. We are used to the constant background hum of London, so this felt almost theatrical, like someone had forgotten to turn the sound effects back on.

The kitchen became our headquarters within about twenty minutes. I had grand plans of exploring immediately, of being that family who stride out purposefully with maps and sensible footwear. Instead we found the coffee machine, worked out that the local bakery in Kirchheim village opens at half six, and spent a happy hour just sitting at the wooden table with the doors open, watching a blackbird have what I can only describe as an extended argument with a worm. The kids were meant to be unpacking. They were actually constructing an elaborate fort from sofa cushions and claiming diplomatic immunity from chores.

I will be honest, there was a moment that first evening where I felt the slight panic of the habitual planner. No museums booked, no itinerary, no scheduled fun. Just a cottage, some board games with suspiciously German rulebooks, and a bottle of Riesling from the supermarket in Alsfeld that we had grabbed on impulse. My partner caught my expression, poured me a glass anyway, and we ended up playing a chaotic game of something involving dice and farm animals while the kids eventually fell asleep across the cushions they had not put away.

That first night, I lay in bed listening to actual silence and realised how much I had needed this. Not the cottage specifically, though it is lovely, but the permission to do very little very slowly. The beams creaked occasionally, as if reminding us they were still holding the place together after all these years. Somewhere an owl did its thing. I fell asleep before I could worry about what we would do tomorrow, which is not like me at all.

The mishap with the sat nav feels like the perfect introduction now. We arrived slightly lost, slightly frayed, and completely unprepared for how quickly a converted farmhouse could start to feel like somewhere we actually belonged.