17

Yesterday it would've been our 17th wedding anniversary.  I wasn't expecting it to be such a hard day, but so far it's been one of the hardest days in the past 12 months. I thought that the 12 month anniversary since Noah passed away would be harder, but as soon as I woke up I felt teary and knew it was going to be an emotional day.

I had to work which was probably a good thing as it kept my mind off it as much as possible.  After school I picked the boys up and we went straight to the cemetery.  It was so lovely to see some flowers left at Aaron and Noah's graves by the beautiful Leanne.  Leanne made the lovely prints with the sayings on it on the side of my blog.  I thought that 'Lee' was someone else, and only just realised today via Instagram that 'Lee' was 'Leeane' :) Thanks for visiting Leanne - it means a lot.

I talked to the boys about how it was going to be our wedding anniversary and how I wanted to do something fun like we always do on days that are extra hard.   We talked about going out for tea and decided that before that we would go swimming as the weather was beautiful and it was a 'family fun night' at the Aquatic Centre which meant they had the inflatables out and the waterslide was free for a few hours.

We then went out for tea which the boys were so excited about. Kobe cracked me up as he asked 'are we in Hobart!?' during tea because we only usually go out somewhere special for tea when we are away from home.

In town last night were lots of activities for the lighting of the Christmas tree in the mall.  We thought it would be fun to go and check it out.  We did a bit of shopping and stopped for a photo with this very funny alpaca (or is it a llama?!).   There were so many people around and I couldn't stop thinking about the same night last year when Aaron and I took Jay out on a date together.   They were singing Christmas carols and all of a sudden I just felt really emotional and didn't want to be there. The poor boys wanted to hang around and watch the lighting of the Christmas tree, but I couldn't leave fast enough and was glad to get home away from all the Christmas festivities. 

I didn't expect our anniversary to be one of the hardest days yet, but it makes sense because it was 'our day'. It wasn't a day that is shared by other people like birthdays and Christmas.  When we were married we were great friends, but as time went on we literally became best friends.  Our life was far from perfect but our relationship became so much stronger as time went on.  We had to learn to rely on each other so we could cope with all of Noah's needs as well as still giving our other boys time as well as trying to keep our relationship strong. 

I treasure these photos that Jay took on our anniversary in 2010 and last year.

Our anniversary last year felt a lot different because it was only about 6 weeks after Noah passed away, but I love this photo because it shows that we could still have a laugh together (I think Aaron was trying to give me a kiss or something and I didn't want to so I kept pushing him away:)

When I married Aaron I knew that he had heart problems and operations as a baby but I didn't think much of it.  If I knew then what I know now I would do it all over again. It's not at all how I wanted things to turn out but I'm so grateful that we had over 16 years on earth together, and am grateful that during that time he showed no sign of his heart troubles until he passed away. I know things could've been a lot different and he could have had a lot of years with bad health. I wish we had many more years on earth together, but I'm so glad that we were able to have four beautiful boys together, and am grateful that my three boys keep me going every day.   I know that Aaron and I will be together again one day, and that's is especially what keeps me going as I can't wait for that day.