Perhaps a childhood dream for children, a reality for Andre Reinders from Westenesch: a large slide with a swimming pool in the backyard. This summer, packed with hot days, he makes the necessary dives from his giant slide.
If you drive past the house of the Reinders family, just outside Emmen, you don’t even notice it at first. But somewhere, hidden behind forest, there is really a 24 meter long slide, which opens into the privately dug swimming pool. The slide is kept upright by concrete blocks, and has been constructed entirely provisionally.
But isn’t that dangerous? “If all goes well not. I haven’t gone out of business yet”, Andre smiles.
But how do you get a slide that is 24 meters long? “He is even 70 meters long,” laughs Andre. “Only that doesn’t all fit in this garden. The rest is at our transport company in Emmen.” An acquaintance of the family once bought the slide, but it was not possible to resell it. “Last year we already bought two parts. This year he asked if we didn’t want the rest.”
After thinking for a while, Andre and his brother decided to buy the entire slide. “Our friends thought we were crazy at first. But I think they are all too happy with it now. They can be found here regularly to have a good slide.”
The slide can also be seen on Andre’s Facebook page, and there were a lot of reactions to it. “All strangers also wanted to come by to slide for a while,” he says. “But that is not the intention. It is for the friends and family. On Sunday we have a big swimming party here and then we clean up the slide again.”
And whether the 70-meter slide will be used next year? “We’ll see that again. But that doesn’t fit here in the garden anyway.”
Check out Andre’s adventures from his giant slide here: