You know it's....

You know it's summer holidays when you wake up and you have no idea what day or date it is. 

You know it's summer holidays when your car is full of sand and you know it's not worth cleaning because it's going to be full of sand all summer.

You know it's summer holidays when you check how many steps you've done on your fitbit, and it's gone back to 0 because it's past midnight!

You know it's summer holidays when you have no where to go, but can go anywhere you want.

You know it's summer holidays when the clothesline is full of bathers and towels every day.

You know it's summer holidays when you run into old friends (almost family!) who you haven't been able to see for ages because life is so busy. It was so lovely to run into Di (one of Noah's carers/teacher aide/second Mum). 

You know it's summer holidays when you are picking goodies from our garden every morning.

You know it's summer holidays when it's 6.30 pm and you're still out playing and enjoying the sunshine and you haven't even thought about what's for tea yet.

You know it's summer holidays when you get to watch live cricket but it's your favourite footy team playing! We loved the Ricky Ponting match where Hawthorn played the Kangaroos in cricket.  So many laughs.  

Kobe with his hero - Jack Gunston.

You know that school is back when I haven't done a blog post for 3 weeks! It's crazy how life can be so relaxed one minute and then how busy it can be the next. As busy and tiring as it is, I'm so happy to have full time work again at the same school I was at, at the end of last year. I love working there and it's so busy as an EAL (English as an Additional Language) teacher because almost a quarter of the school are from an EAL background, so there's always lots to do.


I would love a day off, but I also love and need the work so I'm grateful for full time work and I'll take it while it's there. The boy's sports are just about to start up again so life is just going to get busier, but I cope by knowing that it's just 10 weeks each term and then we get a couple of weeks to catch up before it starts all over again.  Until then I'll just keep reminding myself that the next holidays will hopefully be here before we know it.

Healing

The holidays have gone so fast (here's hoping term 1 goes just as fast!) and I knew that before the holidays were over that I wanted to make a day trip to St Helens.  I was keeping an eye on the weather forecast and hoped that a good day coincided with one of Jay's days off work. 

It worked out perfectly and I was really looking forward to getting down there with the boys.  It's only our third trip back since Aaron passed away there, and the first time was really hard but this time I didn't feel anxious at all about going back this time.

We decided to go to the sand dunes first.  On the way there we had to drive past the house that Aaron passed away at and Kobe straight away yelled 'that's where Dad died!'. I was surprised that he knew since he was only three when it happened, but he probably realised it from photos that we have from our holidays there. 

Kobe was so cute when we got to the sand dunes and jumped out to take a photo with his iPad.

Last time the tube didn't work very well on the dunes and we told Jay that, but he was keen to try anyway and was like 'well it won't if you don't give it a go!'.  It still didn't work even though he had faith in it :)

The boys played on the dunes for ages and then we went into town to grab some fish and chips for lunch.

Kobe has a canvas of a photo of him with Aaron on the jetty fishing, which was taken the day before Aaron died.  He loves it and he recognised the spot straight away and wanted to go there to get another photo.  I could tell that he was happy to be somewhere that he knew he had been with his Dad before.

I couldn't wait to get to Binalong Bay as it's my favourite beach.  It's so beautiful - I just wish the water wasn't as freezing as it is! The lagoon has broken back out again this year and was flowing to the ocean. 

Kobe made me laugh as he kept saying 'what!! This lagoon is made by nature!?  Harri! This lagoon is made by nature - people didn't make it!' as he thought all lagoons were like the one at Wet n Wild where you just float round and round in circles.

We really wanted to walk to the other end of the beach and sit on the rocks, but the tide was high which meant it was quite deep to get across the lagoon. Jay and I looked for ages for a shallow spot and we eventually got across by pulling up our shorts as high as we could.  Jay was cracking me and some tourists from Pennsylvania up as we watched him trying to cross.  They were taking photos of the boys swimming in the lagoon.

How white is that sand!

We spent some time on the rocks at the other end of the beach, and Harri had lots of fun jumping in off the rocks.

It was a big day driving there and back in the same day (it's two hours each way) but we had a lovely day and it was nice to see how far we have come in the last five years, and to know that it's still a favourite place to go and it isn't traumatic being there anymore.  It's definitely healing to go there, knowing that we spent so much time with Aaron and Noah there and knowing that Aaron would love us being back there.

I had fun putting together a little video of our day using the 1 second a day app (which I'm so addicted to already!).  It was one of the best days of our holidays.

Lavender and Lakes

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm obsessed with Instagram.  I love posting pics because it's such a quick and easy way to record memories, and I also love seeing my friend's and family's pics as well.  I also love following accounts that share photos from around Tassie or Australia and often see photos of the Little Blue Lake  in Tasmania and think it looks so beautiful, and have always wanted to go there.

At the beginning of the school holidays Jay and I actually talked about taking a drive to the Little Blue Lake during the holidays. He is into taking photos at the moment and thought it would be fun to take photos there, so we said that we will make sure we did it before the end of the holidays. 

Not long after we talked about it my cousin Tim mentioned to me that we should all go for a drive together to the Little Blue Lake! It cracked me up as Jay and I had just talked about going so we made a date to go. 

We knew that it was a bit of a drive, so we decided to go to the Bridestowe Lavender Farm on the same day.  We have been there before, but Tim and Helene have never been. It was a really hot day!

It was a bit of a drive to get to the Little Blue Lake and when we were almost there I saw the sign that said we were only about 35 km from St Helens. I told the boys we should just keep driving and go there, but they weren't keen after spending so long in the car!

Kobe was like a tourist jumping out of the car with his iPad to take a photo :) The lake used to be a mine and is full of minerals which is what causes the blue colour. It looks so beautiful but the signs say that you shouldn't swim in it because its acidic.  I have heard that people still swim there though.

The drive home on the sideling from Scottsdale was beautiful, but Kobe didn't agree at all as he got very car sick and we had to stop on the way so he could vomit - poor man. At least we can say that we've finally been there.  We really do live in a beautiful place.