They have been counting the days for weeks.

When the holidays finally begin seems to have become the question of all questions.

The closer the longed-for days off school come, these wonderful weeks without duties, the more urgent the desire for them, the more impatiently they are expected.

Plans are forged and then discarded, on which beach you could swim, who to visit, which cities to see - in Germany of course, the virus variants will not let you go further out into the world anyway.

The fourteen-year-old's suggestion to go to Weimar gives the parent or guardian the joyful hope that the hunger for culture is tenderly evident: we could visit the Goethehaus, she lists, the home of Schiller, the Anna Amalia library, the Bauhaus -Museum.

The teenager nods carefully.

Juchhu, this could be a wonderful trip.

Only three more weeks

But these trips are still in the future, which is becoming more and more tangible, and every morning you have to make the same calculation, namely how long it will take until the magic date is reached. The day when, if things go well, everyone is sitting in the car and leaving at noon, not to Spain, France or Italy, but to the Baltic Sea, which now has such warm summers that it makes almost no difference anymore. in which sea you swim.

There are only three weeks left, time has passed by in a flash, the remaining school days are no longer worth mentioning, and anticipation becomes the most precious commodity. Because everything goes by, oh how quickly, even the long-awaited summer vacation will be over in no time. The question that will then be asked in the morning on the first day of school, this question has already been determined.