I should have known the satnav was up to no good the moment it tried to send me through a field of very unimpressed-looking cows. We were barely twenty minutes from Maastricht Airport, already bleary from an early flight, when the pleasant female voice announced we had reached our destination. We had not. We were in a lay-by next to a tractor dealership, and my partner was giving me that look. You know the one. The "you said this would be relaxing" look.

The actual property, when we finally found it tucked down a proper lane in Heel, was mercifully easy to spot. A tidy cottage-style place with a proper garden and that particular stillness you only get in the Dutch countryside. I stood there with the car door still open, one foot on the gravel, just breathing it in. The mishap with the satnav already felt like someone else's story.

The owners had left the key in a sensible little lockbox, none of this faffing about with meet-and-greets after a long journey. Inside, it had that immediate lived-in warmth you cannot fake. Wooden beams, slightly uneven floors that creaked in all the right places, and a kitchen that smelled faintly of the coffee grounds left considerately in the tin. My daughter made a beeline for the garden, shrieking about a trampoline she had spotted from the window. My son was already investigating whether the WiFi reached the outdoor seating area. Priorities.

I will confess something here. I am normally dreadful at switching off. The first day of any holiday, I am usually rearranging cupboards or making unnecessary lists. But something about this place settled me almost immediately. Perhaps it was the way the afternoon light came through the kitchen windows, or how the garden backed onto nothing particularly dramatic except fields and the occasional cyclist. Limburg does not shout for your attention. It simply waits for you to notice it.

We unpacked with the lazy efficiency of people who have nowhere particular to be. The children claimed bedrooms with the diplomatic precision of seasoned negotiators. I stood in the little utility area, noting the washing machine with the satisfaction of someone who fully intends to use it on day five and absolutely no earlier. There was a proper dining table that would seat all of us without anyone having to perch on a stool. Small thing, but it matters.

By late afternoon, we were already in that peculiar holiday rhythm of doing very little very happily. The children bounced on the trampoline until someone inevitably bumped a knee and required consoling with a biscuit. My partner opened wine from the little shop we had passed in the village. I sat on the terrace with my feet up, watching a heron flap lazily across the field behind the garden, and felt something in my shoulders actually release.

The evening brought no grand plans, just a simple walk down the lane to see what we could see. The village of Heel itself is not exactly bustling, which suits me fine. A church, some neat houses, that particular Dutch attention to window boxes and well-swept doorsteps. We found a playground where the children burned off the last of their aeroplane energy while I leaned on a fence and watched the sky do that slow fade to grey-pink that seems to last longer here somehow.

Back at the cottage, we made pasta with ingredients from the little supermarket we had located in our earlier, unintended tour of the local area. The satnav sat on the counter, silent and unrepentant. I did not even glare at it. The mishap had become part of the story already, something to roll our eyes about over breakfast.

That first night, I slept better than I had in months. No traffic noise, no light pollution sneaking around the curtains, just the occasional owl and the comfortable creak of an unfamiliar bed settling around me. I woke to my daughter whispering urgently that she had seen a rabbit in the garden, and did I think it would still be there if we were very quiet?

It was not, of course. Rabbits have schedules to keep. But we looked anyway, standing in our pyjamas on dewy grass, and that was enough.