Our East Coast Break

We just got back home from the best five days at St Helens.  We decided to come home a couple of days early, despite the beautiful weather as we were sad we were going to miss Sam and Ty's wedding reception tomorrow.

We arrived at St Helens late Monday afternoon, and couldn't waste the afternoon away by just unpacking, so headed straight to the beach.  Noah was so excited about it! ;)

 We were wondering how Kobe was going to go after absolutely hating it last year, and freaking out everytime his feet touched the sand.  This year we had no worries at all about him. He ran straight to the beach and couldn't get there fast enough.


The boys had lots of fun climbing over on the rocks and exploring.  We were both saying how Harri has grown up a lot since last year.  Last year he didn't want to go over to the rocks at all, let alone climb them.

Aaron isn't a very strong swimmer, but he's definitely a waterboy when he's at the beach. No matter how cold the water is, he is always straight in.

It's the first time all holidays that we really felt like were in holiday mode as we were away from everything. 

It was a beautiful afternoon, to just lay in the sun and enjoy getting away from the world for just a few days.

On Monday night Chrish arrived in Tassie after having a weeks on the Gold Coast, so we convinced him and Mum to come down to stay with us for a night or two.  Whenever we are down there I always think we should go to the St Columba Falls and after seeing it on Makayla's blog last week, I was keen to see if it was okay for Noah's wheelchair. The lady at the visitors centre told me she knew someone who had taken a wheelchair to the falls and said it 'wasn't too bad', so we took a drive to it.   Even from the carpark was an amazing view of the 90 m falls.

It was a beautiful walk down to the falls through a rainforest.

Once we got to the falls Chrish had to of course jump the viewing platform fence to get a better view and take photos. The other tourists thought it was quite amusing and a lady next to us even took a photo of him!

Noah looks like he's asleep, but he was actually wide awake and I could tell he was enjoying all the noise of the fall, which is one of the highest falls in Tasmania.

Kobe has become quite the poser for photos now.  Don't you just love his smile! Crazy boy.  It was a little steep going back up the hill with Noah's chair so Aaron, Chrish and I took turns pushing him back up.  Obviously the woman who said it 'wasn't too bad' has never tried to push 100 kg or so up a hill!

The weather wasn't fantastic, but Chrish hadn't been to St Helens since we were kids and couldn't remember anything of it, so we decided to go to Binalong Bay for a little while.

I think he was pretty impressed! Enough so to join Aaron in the water!

It was a lovely afternoon relaxing and enjoying such a beautiful beach.

Chrish took some photos for us, so we could get a new summer blog header.  I'm not sure what Aaron is doing, but I think he's trying to feel how buff my biceps are! ;)

After tea we asked Mum if she minded looking after Noah and Kobe after we put him into bed,  so we could go up to the sand dunes with the boys. It's always nice to have someone with us so we can do things like that, that we wouldn't normally get to do together because of Noah's chair.

On the dunes were some cool sand formations from the wind.

Chrish was in his element snapping away.  It was a fun time of the day to take photos as the sun was setting.

The next day was Australia Day, so of course no Australia Day is complete without a day at the beach, so we headed back to one of the most beautiful beaches ever again - Binalong Bay.  Noah decided to sleep most of the day away in the beach tent.

 While he was sleeping, we were enjoying the perfect weather.

 (Thanks for the photo Chrish)

Every time we go to Binalong Bay I always go for a walk from one end to the beach to the other with Jay, while Aaron stays with the other boys.  Because Mum was with us, we were excited that Aaron and I could actually walk the beach together for the first time.  Chrish, Jay and Harri came along and had a fantastic time playing in the huge waves around the other side of the beach. 

 While they were in the water, I was happy taking photos of lots of lovely things.

 (thanks for your photo chrish!)

When we reached the other end we went up on the rocks and enjoyed the view...

 and had fun watching Aaron and Chrish jump off them.

 It was so warm when we got back from our walk, that even I went in for a quick dip!

 (thanks for the photo Chrish!)

It was such a beautiful Australia Day and Aaron actually said it was the best Australia Day he had ever had! It was worth all the trouble of getting Noah and his wheelchair on and off the beach, for such a beautiful day. 

To finish off the perfect day we went to Scamander for some beautiful fish and chips by the water for tea.

The next day it was sunny, but very windy so we just spend a little time at the beach ('little' meaning still a couple of hours).

The boys had fun rowing their little boat in the lagoon.  Kobe has all of a sudden found out how to chuck the biggest tantrums. He wasn't impressed with Harri when he wouldn't give him a turn with the oars! I was worried he was going to get so cranky that he was just going to tip out of the boat!

We then headed into St Helens to do some fishing off the jetty.  I don't mind fishing, but when you are fishing with a very active and stubborn two year old on a jetty, it's very stressful. I have this fear that Kobe or Harri is going to fall in, and I'm going to have to dive in and save them.  It's not only scary to think that I'll most likely have my camera around my neck and I'll have to decided to jump in camera and all (haha!), but I HATE opening my eyes under water and just knowing my child was under there and it would be up to me to save them freaks me out!

Instead I knew it would be more relaxing if Kobe and I went for a walk to the playground and spent time there instead.


We missed out all the action while we were gone.

Mum actually caught a fish that was big enough to keep! Not long before that we were bagging her out about her hot pink rod! Looks like hot pink is a winner!

Aaron wasn't impressed as Chrish had also caught a couple of small ones, but he and the boys hadn't caught any. He kept saying 'Triffitts - 4, Kings - 0'. I reminded him that I was a Triffitt by blood, so I was on the winning team, even if they were small ones (and no that is not the bait - that was one Chrish caught!).

The boys had so much fun fishing (Aaron and Chrish included), that they decided to get up at 6am this morning and go back to the jetty.  Harri was very upset when he woke up about 7.30 and realised they had left him behind, but we weren't keen on waking him as he had been so tired from a huge week.  I was hoping for fresh fish for breakfast but unfortunately even though they caught 5 this morning, they were all too small to keep. Jay was so excited to have caught two on his own.

He even got a bigger one than Aaron!  In the end it ended up with Triffitts - 6, Kings - 9 but I'm thinking Mum's one fish that we could actually keep and ate probably makes up the difference :)


This morning before we packed up to come home we headed to the beach one more time, just up the road from the shack.  Today was the perfect day, so it was sad to leave.




There were so many fishing boats going in and out off the boat ramps.

 

Pity the boys couldn't have gone out further and caught us a couple of crays!

It's always hard to leave such a beautiful and relaxing place.

But it's also nice to get back home.  When we walked in the door at home we both said how it hit us again how lucky we were to have a new home.  It felt so light, clean and big after spending 5 days in a tiny shack. Although it's tiny compared to home, we love going there and are already looking forward to next year!