Our Australia Day 2013

This Australia Day was obviously a lot different to last year, but in many ways it was also very similar.  

 

The weather wasn't the best again, but it didn't stop us from wanting to go to the beach.  That is the one thing I knew that I wanted to do on the one year anniversay since Aaron's death.

It was nice to be in Queensland and away for the anniversary as it was enough of a distraction to make the day easier.   The morning started off with the heaviest rain I had ever seen.  We went out and did a bit of shopping and went to get some balloons to release, and just by jumping out of the car and running to the shops we were saturated from head to toe!  The awesome thing about being in Queensland though is that even though it was wet, it was still very humid so it wasn't cold at all.

We grabbed some balloons and a couple of Australian flags (which Aaron was probably laughing about since he was so unAustralian!) and then headed to the Spit where we had our beautiful photos taken with Alana.  

The pouring rain stopped long enough for us to get out onto the beach to release them.

 It was so windy so it didn't take them long to get out of our sight.

It was so stormy and the water had a lot of dangerous rips in it that we could see, so the boys only played in it up to their ankles.  Even that was too much as even the small waves were so powerful and would knock them over, so we quickly got out. Chrish was a little more daring and caught a few waves along with a couple of surfers who were also in.  I was scared he was going to get dragged out to sea, but he insisted on doing it for Aaron.

We then went back into Surfers Paradise and just had to go to Maccas for lunch for Aaron.  The boys of course would go to Maccas every day if I would let them! We also got some Pepsi and had a toast later in the night for Aaron.  

The plan was to go down to the beach and have some sparklers, but it was so rainy and windy (Cyclone Oswald was starting to hit!) that there was no way we could get the sparklers lit anyway, so we just had the toast on the balcony of our hotel.

It was so windy and Harri was terrified he was going to blow off the balcony, so his face cracks me up as it's his 'hurry and take the photo while I'm smiling Mum, so I can get off the balcony and get back inside' face :)

I was glad that the day had finally passed and it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, but I kept thinking how four days later it would've been the anniversary of the date of Aaron's funeral. I didn't feel like I could say that I had gotten through the first year, until the date of his funeral also passed. 

I can't believe that it has been a year already and people say that the first year is the hardest, but to me the first year is a blur of shock, feeling consantly tired, and just trying to get through each day and I feel like the hardest times may be yet to come.

I feel like I still haven't had time to grieve and don't feel like I will grieve properly until the boys are more settled and have gone through a lot more themselves.  It's hard to deal with it all myself, when I am so busy and feel like you don't even have time to really think about what has happened.   The boys need me so much - physically and emotionally so I feel like all my energy is being focused on them right now. 

It's hard to imagine how the next year will go and how I will feel next Australia Day.  One thing I know for sure though is that I hope we still spend the day at the beach, because that is what Aaron would've loved.