Going Back to the Coast

Over the last school holidays, we had some beautiful weather.  It's only spring time, but a few days actually felt like summer.  I kept checking my weather app on my phone, as I have been keen to go for a day trip to the East Coast.  Every summer we would spend a week at St Helens as a family and we loved it so much.  It was where Aaron passed away, so we have only been back once since then, on the two year anniversary of Aaron's death.   The first time we went back we were all feeling quite anxious about it, but I wanted it to continue to be a happy place for us to be, so I'm glad that we went back.

I saw that the weather was going to be in the high 20s (Celcius) on the coast one day, but also that it was going to be windy, but I didn't mind as I knew it would be a hot day and was so keen to go to Binalong Bay which is our favourite beach in Tassie. It's two hours from home, so it's not the closest beach we can go to, but it's definitely worth the drive. We were excited to see the temperature was 30 degrees on the way there (don't panic! I didn't take the photo while I was driving - Jay took it :)

It was nice to get to St Helens and not feel anxious about going back this time.  When we got there Kobe started yelling 'I remember this place now!'. The boys were excited to go to the sand dunes that we used to always go to, which meant we would have to drive past the house that Aaron passed away in.

Kobe always has a lot of questions as he has forgotten a lot over the last few years.   He then asked me where Daddy died. I asked Harri and Jay if they were worried about being there, and seeing the house and they said they weren't, so we went for a drive past the house. It was so weird to look at the house and remember all the things that happened that night.  I felt sad, but I didn't feel any anxiety about seeing it which was nice.


It was so nice to see this beautiful view again.

It was an extremely windy day though, so a lot of the time we were trying to keep the sand out of our eyes. This photo cracks me up so much.
We thought we had a great idea to use our City Slider tubes to slide down the dunes.

Unfortunately it didn't work, but the boys still had a great time.


I laughed so much that I cried, when the wind would get hold of the tubes and the boys would have to chase them down the dunes. 



It started to get very windy and the sand was blowing in our eyes and stinging our arms and legs, so we took off from the dunes and couldn't wait to get to Binalong Bay.   We had a laugh that the statue had Hawks colours around her wrists :)


This is the beach where Aaron spent his last day, jumping in the waves, so although the water was absolutely freezing, Harri and Kobe couldn't wait to jump in.


Jay hates the water, so he avoided it even touching his feet. I was happy to walk in it, as we walked along the beach to the other end.   These two had the best time just playing in the water and kicking the footy to each other. They kept saying how much Aaron would've loved it, and that's all I kept thinking about all day.

We love climbing the rocks at the other end of the beach.

We all sat at the top and admired the view, and talked about the different times we had been there with Aaron and Noah.
The boys kept talking about when Aaron and my brother Chrish would jump of the rocks into the water when the tide was up.

 I could've sat on the rocks all day. Harri and Kobe decided to move to the lower rocks to see if the waves would splash them. 


I sat with the boys for a bit and we loved it when a huge wave splashed us.

We had such a lovely day and it was really nice to go back to the coast again, and not feel anxious or too sad about it this time.  It's nice to create some happy memories there again, as I don't want to think about it as a sad place, because we had so many happy times there together as a family.