Getting Away

One thing I never took for granted when Aaron was alive, was how lucky we were to have so much time together on school holidays.  A lot of people joke about how many holidays teachers have and how people often teach just for the holidays (which actually isn't true for the majority of teachers) but for us it was just a bonus of the job that Aaron (and I) loved doing.

We always loved school holidays and tried to do as much as we could together depending on Noah and his health.  It always meant we did something close to home as going away on big holidays interstate was impossible unless we left Noah behind, which we did not want to do.

Now I really dread school holidays.  I hate being home with the boys for so long on our own, as it just reminds me of how different things are.  Before Aaron and I would take turns sleeping in, while the other one got up early with Kobe and would get Noah's meds and feeds ready for the day.  We would have lazy mornings around the house and would then try to go and do something most afternoons.

Now the house is just so quiet and empty and doesn't feel like home anymore.  I don't like being here much and find it easier to just get away which is what we decided to do for some of these school holidays.

My brother Christian has lived in Sydney for years, and hopefully will be moving back to Tassie at the end of the year, so we thought we'd make the most of being able to stay with him in Sydney and just spent a week with him.

The first day we were there we got to catch up with lots of people who used to live in Tassie.  It was so nice to see some old friends Lou and Konnie, who have lived in QLD now for a long time.  Lou was my Bishop from church when Aaron and I were going out and were married, so it was nice to chat to him.

While we were in Sydney Chrish had to work, but it was okay as we were happy to do our own thing and were lucky to have the use of his car.  I was so nervous about driving up there, but with the help of the GPs I drove like a professional! ;)

Half the fun of being in Sydney for the boys is catching the trains, so we caught the train into the city a couple of times.    Other times we had been in Sydney we had Chrish showing us the ropes, so I was pleasantly surprised that it was so easy to work out where we were going and just jump on and off trains. 

The boys really wanted to just go to Circular Quay and look around, and catch a ferry to Manly so the first day there that is what we did.

The weather was so nice and we loved just spending time sitting on the beach relaxing.

Aaron loved getting slurpees from 7 eleven whenever we were on the mainland, so whenever the boys saw a 7 eleven (which was a lot!) they had to get one, and their excuse was that it was for Dad :)

 We always love going on the ferry and seeing the beautiful view on the harbour.

We had a lovely time walking around Circular Quay. Kobe kept yelling 'The Sydney Harbour Bridge!!' really loudly.

We were so busy all week and had a lovely time.  It was so nice to get away even just for half of the school holidays.  Sometimes I wonder if it's worth it though because it's so hard to come back home and back to reality again.  Even Harri who is usually happy has found it really hard since being home and has cried a lot saying how much he misses Aaron.  Unfortunately I guess we can't get away from it forever though.

There will be more posts to follow of other things we did while we were away.