Itinerary Assistance Please

Since you'll have the car and will be an Apeldoorn I strongly recommend you to visit the Kroller-Muller Museum, which is located within the Hoge Veluwe National Park.

If you decide to spend the night in Friesland, this is a great little thatched place right on a canal - D'Oude Herbergh - we have stayed here a few times and it is authentic Friesland! Close to Sneek and all the beautiful small villages and farmland of the area.

Kathy most of the answers, ideas are already given in your other post under the General Europe branche: https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/general-europe/belgium-netherlands-denmark

Well maybe this can also be of interest: In the coach-house of Castle Middachten there is a B&B, located some 30km south(-east) of Apeldoorn. See www.middachten.nl , you can select English.
On the way (45km) north from Maastricht to Apeldoorn you can visit nice village Thorn, well-known for the white painted houses.

Wil - Sorry, I didn't mean to sound repetitive from the other post. That had great information in it to help me put together our route which is now set. Our trip reversed itself to starting in Paris and travelling out to NL where we fly out from Amsterdam which is actually working out better for a route through NL. It's been overwhelming sorting out this last bit as there are just so many places that sound great. With this route I can pick up a car in Brussels and drop off in any of the towns Amsterdam, Haarlam, The Hague with the same very small drop off fee and that's what got me wondering about staying those last 5 nights all in Amsterdam or splitting it with one of the other locations. I know we can base in Amsterdam and do day trips to all of these places and drop the car there. What I'm trying to ask is since I can drive the car to any of these spots to drop off, would it be a good experience staying in one of the other towns for a couple nights and then spend the last couple in Amsterdam as opposed to the one location only and that's where I'd like to hear opinions. Or is it just better to base in the one spot.

I also have to apologize that through all the research and your information I missed the two locations you mentioned to stay near Alperdoorn (Zutphen or Deventer) so I will look these up and Middachten.

Thanks for advising about Thorn - it looks nice. We will also try to fit in Kroller-Muller Museum - for sure the sculpture garden.

If you will be in Arnhem, not very far out of town southeast, on the German border, is Kasteel Huis Bergh which is a real castle with super nice walking grounds and a very nice castle. They even have overnights in rooms in the two towers. The small town it is in, 's-Heerenberg, is very cute too, and not far away is a good pancake bakery in the tiny town of Zeddem along with a very old windmill.

That's a nice part of the word and so relaxing - despite being so close to the Ruhrgebiet.

Kathy - Your question in this post about staying somewhere near Apeldoorn (Zutphen and Deventer) did me think you were repeating the question, the reason for my first reaction here with the referring link.
Your explanation makes everything clear for me now, so no worry, it’s okay. I can imagine that working through such an amount of information can be a bit overwelming and sometimes things can because of that overlooked.
Challenge is indeed making the right choices based on the information you can get and hopefully not missing things you can regret later. I just think and hope that some of my ideas, tips together with those of others can contribute to a rememberable trip, you are free to consider them ofcourse. You have time till September to get everything settled, must be reasonable enough I think.

As you will fly out of Amsterdam it’s best to keep the daytrips to cities till you are staying there for using the train. To my opinion it would be best if you can be flexible about when and where dropping off the car. Maybe once here you will have a better idea about the moment for doing that. Depending the rental car company you can select more places in The Netherlands but Amsterdam as long as it has a convenient railway connection and that the luggage is easy enough to handle.