I should have known the sat nav was up to no good the moment it tried to send us through what looked suspiciously like someone's back garden. There we were, two hours out of Erfurt, three children in the back questioning every life choice that had led them to this Renault Scenic, and me insisting that "Schnett Masserberg" was definitely a real place and not something I'd invented after too much Riesling.

The mishap came at a roundabout somewhere past Ilmenau. I took the exit marked for Masserberg with the confidence of a man who had not, in fact, read the sign properly. Ten minutes of increasingly narrow lanes later, we found ourselves at a dead end outside a farmyard, surrounded by curious cows and one very judgmental goat. My wife opened her mouth to speak. I held up a hand. "Don't," I said. "Just don't." The children, naturally, found this hilarious. Nothing bonds a family quite like Dad's stubborn refusal to admit he's lost in the Thuringian Forest.

We eventually found the proper turn, winding up through beech woods that looked like they'd been painted by someone with a particular fondness for deep greens and sudden shafts of golden light. The cottage sat at the edge of Schnett, a hamlet so peaceful you could hear your own thoughts apologising for making noise. It was one of those traditional Fachwerk affairs, all timber framing and sensible German windows, with a balcony that promised morning coffee and evening wine in equal measure.

First impressions? The key was in a lockbox, which I fumbled with for an embarrassing length of time while a local cat watched from the garden wall with the patient disdain only cats can manage. The door opened onto a smell of pine and recent cleaning that immediately made me feel guilty about the mud we were trailing in. The living room had that wonderful vaulted ceiling you only get in proper mountain cottages, and someone had left a small bowl of local sweets on the table that the children spotted before I'd even put the cases down.

I made the mistake of declaring I'd "just pop out and find the nearest shop for milk." This was optimistic. Schnett doesn't really do shops. Schnett does views. Schnett does fresh air and the occasional tractor. I ended up driving to Masserberg proper, a village that proudly claims to be Germany's highest, where I found a bakery that had already closed and a supermarket that hadn't. I bought milk, some questionable sausages, and a jar of Thuringian mustard that I absolutely did not need but felt compelled to purchase out of gratitude.

Back at the cottage, my wife had already claimed the best bedroom and the children had established territorial control over the balcony. I stood in the kitchen with my supermarket haul, listening to nothing but wind in the trees and distant cowbells, and felt something shift. The sat nav disaster, the goat, the judgmental cat - none of it mattered. We were here, in a timber-framed cottage on the edge of the Thuringian Forest, with nothing demanding our attention except each other and the slow passage of time.

I poured a glass of that wine I'd bought, stepped onto the balcony, and watched the light fade over the hills. The children were bickering gently about who got which bedroom. My wife was unpacking with the methodical efficiency of someone who knows exactly where everything should go. And I, still slightly muddy, slightly lost, and entirely content, realised that this was precisely what we'd come for.