Beach Therapy

I was really looking forward to getting away to Swansea with the boys and my family, but I didn't except it to be so therapeutic.  As the days went on I felt myself relaxing more and more. By the third day I suddenly realised how good I felt and the usual stress I feel in my neck and shoulders had gone.  The house is away from the main town and surrounded by bush, with only a few other houses around that you don't really see which is why I think it felt so relaxing.
We only would see a few people and maybe a horse or two each day, on the beach in front of the house, so it felt like we had our own secluded little beach. Just looking out at this beautiful view from the house every day made me feel relaxed.

We loved having lazy mornings just hanging out in the house, not having anywhere to go unless we wanted to.




After beautiful days at the beach, we would come back to the house and spend time in 'the fun room' (as Kobe called it!) playing foosball and eight ball. 

Some days it was quite windy, but once the wind died down we would head out to the beach. Before we left I remembered some old blow up boats we had in the garage. We took them down and they turned out to be so much fun.  The boys spent ages on them, trying to float down the river to the sea on them and getting crashed in the waves on them.



The day before we left was a very windy day and after Jay was thrown out of one of the boats by a wave, it started getting flipped over in the wind and blew right out to sea before we could get it. The other one got a hole in it at the same time, so the boat fun was over and the boys were missing them a lot on the last day. 

Chrish thought he was safer in his kayak than on a blow up boat, and would take it out to the middle of the bay and would throw his line in, to see if he could catch any fish.  This day wasn't so successful.

I've always loved the beach since I was little, but this time it was just really hard to drag myself away from it.  Just being there with no people around and having such a lovely place to stay at made me feel so relaxed.  We loved just being able to watch the waves roll in, play in the boats and waves, collect shells and had fun throwing the frisbee around.




Aaron and Noah were on my mind all the time, but while I was there it hit me that for the first time in 12 months the sadness and grief wasn't the thing on my mind the most.  I actually felt stress free (as stress free as you can feel with what we've gone through)  for the first time in a long time and it was so nice to feel a little bit 'normal' again.

It's hard to read but Harri wrote in the sand 'Noah Aaron King, Aaron Roxley Thornton King. Love and miss you guys so much xxx'.
 
 The day before we came home was my Mum's 60th birthday.  I made pancakes for breakfast and we sat and talked about how hard it was going to go home and leave the beautiful view while we ate.

 We then had a lovely morning on the beach before we took her out for lunch at the Bark Mill Tavern in Swansea.  She had the 'surf and turf' which was huge!

 

After lunch Chrish headed home and while Mum had a nanna nap (which I'm sure she will have a lot more, now she is a senior citizen!) the boys and I headed to the beach for one more afternoon before we had to leave the next morning.  We had a lovely week with my family with us, but just the couple of hours I spent with my boys on the beach that afternoon was my favourite time there all week.  We had a lovely walk together, just talking and having fun as we splashed each other in the waves (all the while I was yelling 'watch my phone!!'). 

My boys are typical brothers - best friends one minute and then fighting the next. This made me smile so much.

These steps led up to a beautiful house which had the most amazing views of the beach. 

The boys had the best week and although they each had a few sad times when they were thinking about Daddy and Noah, it was nice to see them so happy and having so much fun.  

I was trying to get a 'selfie' of myself on the beach ('cause that's what all the cool chicks are doing these days right!? ;) when Jay cracks me up by jumping in the pic, pulling a duck face.  He cracks me up as he's always imitating teenage girls doing selfies on their phones. 

It was the best thing to be able to just get away from everything for a week and I felt like a big weight had been lifted from me while I was there.  Every time I'm away at the beach for a while I think about how wonderful it would be to live closer to the beach, and always think I should sell up and just move there.  If only it were that easy. 

It was so hard to wake up on the last morning and know it was time to leave, especially when I opened the blinds to see the sun was shining and it was going to be another beautiful day.   As we got closer to home I literally felt the stress coming back as my neck and shoulders started to get tense again as I knew I was driving back home where I hate being without Aaron and Noah.   It has been hard being home just even for the last few days as reality hits again, but I was so grateful to 'get away' from the grief (not that you can ever truly get away from it) just for that short time.  It was so therapeutic.