Dana is a reporter and Travel Tomorrow’s Associate Editor She graduated in Political Science and International Relations She moved to Brussels from Romania for her studies and Mont des Arts made her fall in love with the city and remain here the third edition of the “Family Castle Life” event will take place Organised on the occasion of the Youth and Heritage Week by the Secretariat of the European Heritage Days families will be able to access 32 castles for free in Wallonia in addition to the visits and activities offered by the organizers parents and children will be able to experience heritage in practice through educational games developed by the Walloon Heritage Agency and the non-profit organization Museums and Society in Wallonia through a creative game for children aged 3 to 5 and a treasure hunt for children from 6 to 12 years old Although all the activities are free of charge, reservations need to be made online beforehand for some of the locations. Below, just a few examples of the châteaux that await to be discovered next Monday. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Belgian traveler 🧳🗺️ #belgianblogger 🇧🇪 (@belgiantraveler_) View this post on Instagram A post shared by Wallonie.be (@walloniebe) As for Raeren Castle, it was originally a residential tower of similar dimensions, the footprint of which almost doubled at the end of the 16th century with the addition of an annex. Numerous alterations in the 18th century transformed it into a romantic-style castle. It has housed the Raeren Pottery Museum since 1960, which presents the history of Raeren stoneware. View this post on Instagram A post shared by belgientourismuswallonie (@belgientourismuswallonie) View this post on Instagram A post shared by Walter (@walter.explorateur) View this post on Instagram A post shared by Anthony Beck (@antho_beck) Essential cookies enable basic functions and are necessary for the proper function of the website Statistics cookies collect information anonymously This information helps us to understand how our visitors use our website Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time Mathias Cormann,'' says the stationmaster at Eupen a sleepy town in the hills near Belgium's border with Germany ''He is the new finance minister of Australia In nearby Raeren - the even sleepier village where Cormann grew up - the pharmacist an ice-cream seller and a local councillor all say the same thing ''I read it in the local paper,'' they say This is the kind of place where the bus drops schoolchildren at the front door of their homes set beside luscious meadows dotted with ponies ''The geography is perfect for potting,'' says one tourist website explaining Raeren's celebrated ceramic exports from the Renaissance until the 19th century with plenty of clear running water and enough woodland to fire the kilns.'' Mathias with his mother and three younger sisters A combination of war damage and the discovery of porcelain defeated the master potters and now many of the village's 10,000 inhabitants work at an aluminium plant while others make the round trip each day to factories in Germany That's what Herbert Cormann was doing in 1970 when he and his wife Hildegard had their first child Forty-three years later the West Australian senator - who has since taken Australian citizenship - was sworn in to Tony Abbott's cabinet prompting one Belgian headline to trumpet: ''A Belgian in charge of the Australian Budget'' could not be extinguished,'' wrote tabloid La Derniere Heure ''Even at the end of the world.'' at 21 he became a local councillor with the centre-right Christian Social Party Photo: Alex EllinghausenCredit: Alex Ellinghausen ''He went on holiday to Australia and afterwards he said I'm staying there','' says Herbert recalling his son's admiration for Australians' open Raeren's location less than five kilometres from the German border puts it within an 854-square-kilometre German-speaking pocket of east Belgium The German-speaking community makes up 0.7 per cent of the country's population Cormann learnt French during his last three years of high school in Liege and at law school in Namur before adding Flemish during his graduate studies in Leuven 25 kilometres east of Brussels in the Flanders region ''I have fond memories of Leuven,'' Cormann said in a recent interview with his alma mater ''They were the best years of my life All those young people pursuing academic excellence and enjoying life to the fullest at the same time.'' He did not learn English until 1993 during an exchange to Norwich at the University of East Anglia Describing Australia to his former university in Leuven Cormann said: ''Everyone has a foreign background here Only it's a bit further in the past for some than for others If you come here with the intention to really apply yourself the possibilities are limitless.'' a crayon kangaroo sketch in the hallway is the only hint of the antipodes at the family home in Raeren where Cormann's promotion to finance minister is still sinking in ''At first it doesn't compute,'' says Herbert Cormann was always interested in politics: collecting newspaper articles working for a member of the European Parliament and figuring out what mattered through long conversations with his mother ''With him I could speak about anything at any age,'' Hildegard says in English The 64-year-old took language classes following a visit to Australia with her husband in 2009 for Cormann's wedding to Perth lawyer Hayley Ross (now Hayley Cormann) ''My son and I always spoke about people who are very rich and people who are very poor,'' Hildegard says and he was very interested in speaking about that I liked it because he wanted to change things that are not good.'' When Cormann was 10 years old his father spent six months in hospital with a near-fatal illness that at one point left him weighing just 36 kilograms ''Mathias learnt everything necessary to look after the other children and do the housework,'' Herbert says ''He became not like a father exactly He organised all the family affairs.'' At the base of the Cormanns' driveway their neighbour Heeren Christoph surveys a broken rabbit hutch and beyond it the forest stretching to the German frontier to think of the person I used to play hide and seek and football with over there as the finance minister of Australia.'' ''Everyone comes to you if they have a problem,'' Christoph says but it is a bit like a big family.'' Cormann still asks his parents for updates about political developments in the region ''I still feel quite Belgian,'' he told Catholic University of Leuven ''Tintin sketches hang in my office And I take every opportunity to meet Belgians visiting Australia.'' Herbert dropped English classes after one year but took up a computing course to help the family stay in touch via email ''My wife doesn't understand the computer and I don't understand English,'' he jokes Cormann's three younger sisters live nearby with their families but Hildegard admits it is hard to have her son's family including seven-month-old granddaughter Isabelle ''I see them in the computer but not in my arms,'' she says ''It's not the same.'' Mathias Cormann,'' says the stationmaster at Eupen a sleepy town in the hills near Belgium's border with Germany ''He is the new finance minister of Australia ''I read it in the local paper,'' they say ''The geography is perfect for potting,'' says one tourist website explaining Raeren's celebrated ceramic exports from the Renaissance until the 19th century with plenty of clear running water and enough woodland to fire the kilns.'' A combination of war damage and the discovery of porcelain defeated the master potters and now many of the village's 10,000 inhabitants work at an aluminium plant That's what Herbert Cormann was doing in 1970 when he and his wife Hildegard had their first child Forty-three years later the West Australian senator - who has since taken Australian citizenship - was sworn in to Tony Abbott's cabinet prompting one Belgian headline to trumpet: ''A Belgian in charge of the Australian Budget'' could not be extinguished,'' wrote tabloid La Derniere Heure ''He went on holiday to Australia and afterwards he said recalling his son's admiration for Australians' open Raeren's location less than five kilometres from the German border puts it within an 854-square-kilometre German-speaking pocket of east Belgium The German-speaking community makes up 0.7 per cent of the country's population ''I have fond memories of Leuven,'' Cormann said in a recent interview with his alma mater All those young people pursuing academic excellence and enjoying life to the fullest at the same time.'' Cormann said: ''Everyone has a foreign background here Only it's a bit further in the past for some than for others a crayon kangaroo sketch in the hallway is the only hint of the antipodes at the family home in Raeren where Cormann's promotion to finance minister is still sinking in ''At first it doesn't compute,'' says Herbert The 64-year-old took language classes following a visit to Australia with her husband in 2009 for Cormann's wedding to Perth lawyer Hayley Ross (now Hayley Cormann) ''My son and I always spoke about people who are very rich and people who are very poor,'' Hildegard says I liked it because he wanted to change things that are not good.'' ''Mathias learnt everything necessary to look after the other children and do the housework,'' Herbert says to think of the person I used to play hide and seek and football with over there as the finance minister of Australia.'' ''Everyone comes to you if they have a problem,'' Christoph says ''I still feel quite Belgian,'' he told Catholic University of Leuven And I take every opportunity to meet Belgians visiting Australia.'' ''My wife doesn't understand the computer and I don't understand English,'' he jokes Cormann's three younger sisters live nearby with their families but Hildegard admits it is hard to have her son's family ''I see them in the computer but not in my arms,'' she says