An exhausting school holidays

I always dread school holidays now that Aaron and Noah aren't with us because the days seem extra long.  These school holidays came a lot earlier than we are used to in Tasmania, because we have just switched from three to four terms.

We were all definitely ready for a break from work and school, and I was looking forward to not having a routine, but dreading it at the same time.   Having a routine keeps us busy and makes the days go a lot quicker.   Being on holidays means that we enjoy sleep ins (if only Kobe would actually sleep in) and get to spend lots of time together, but that also means that we miss Aaron and Noah even more as it's a lot more obvious that Aaron and Noah aren't with us.

To make the holidays as easy as possible I try to make sure that we get out and do something every day.  The boys would be more than happy to sit at home all day, every day on the computer if I let them.    I don't mind them having some down time on the computer and playing on the Wii, but I know how important it is to get out as it what helps me to feel half normal.

The boys said they wanted to do a few things that we would often do in the holidays with Aaron and Noah, like going to the movies and going ten pin bowling, but we also had fun doing things that we didn't plan, like going on a tour of the fire station, and playing in the hail.

It was the first time we had been ten pin bowling since Noah passed away and we had a great time, but Jay felt really sad the whole time as it made him think of Aaron.  We used to go ten pin bowling every school holidays, so it brought back a lot of memories for us.   Aaron was so excited when the prefects from school gave him a bowling ball as a gift one year.  We decided to take Aaron's ball for good luck. 

I now know why Aaron used to win all the time. It wasn't necessarily that he was better than us at bowling - it was the ball! It was such a good ball!   Check out my double strike at the end! I'm sure Aaron had something to do with that.

We love living close to school now. It feels like we have our own personal playground close by.  We have enjoyed going there to play basketball, kick the footy, throw the frisbee and ride bikes.

The boys put their footy and basketball tops on when they knew we would be playing some sports together.     Harri was so serious that he took two tops with him - his Atlanta Hawks one for when we played basketball, and then switched to his Hawks one for when we kicked the footy. He makes me laugh as he is so serious about anything to do with sports.

We are lucky to have some beautiful places so close to home.    On the first day of our holidays I dragged the boys out for a walk at the Gorge.  Jay surprised me as he is so much fitter since he has been walking to school, since moving to our new house. 

My boys have learned if they just quickly pose for a photo for me, I will then leave them alone :)

Posers :)

I cracked up at Jay who was taking a selfie.  Apparently if you are taking a selfie you are supposed to  open your mouth really wide!

Harri and I obviously forgot to do it in this one.

The boys always love going to the Bike Centre.  I think the last time we went there was just ten days before Aaron passed away.  I can't remember going back since then and it's such a fun, cheap activity that you can do with a lot of people, so I booked it for a couple of hours and invited lots of people to join us.  It was lovely to have so many people come and we also got to meet some new friends who we had only met online, but have just moved to Tasmania from Queensland.

The kids had the best time time playing together and the time went so fast.



We hadn't been to Agfest for a few years, and Jay and Harri couldn't actually remember ever going, so it was good that it was on during school holidays.  We had a lovely few hours there with Mum.  The boys loved doing push ups and sit ups with the army to earn a prize from them.

All day Kobe wanted to go back to 'watch the news'.  He loved the Southern Cross tent where you could sit at the news desk and read the news on the teleprompter.  There was a huge screen outside where you could watch people doing it and some of it was really funny as some people would go off script and say their own thing.

The highlight at Agfest was meeting Hawthorn legend - Peter Hudson. He was at the Hawks tent and was so lovely to the boys and even signed a ball for them.  Aaron would've been going crazy if he saw him there.

Overall our holidays were good.  It has been our easiest school holidays so far, and I'm sure that moving to our new house has helped that a little bit.  It was nice to spend lots of time together over the last couple of weeks.    Even though we just had holidays I'm actually feeling really run down and tired, and I think it's because I've been trying to keep the boys busy.

Because the boys have been staying up a lot later, I feel like I have no quiet time to myself, so I have also been staying up really late to enjoy some peace at the end of the day.  It isn't good though when Kobe wakes up at his usual time.

We go back to school and work tomorrow and hopefully getting back into a routine and having some earlier nights, will mean that I feel a bit better physically.  I feel like I need a real holiday! :) 

My Veggie Garden

Our garden at our new house is of course nothing like our beautiful landscaped garden at our old house, but it's well established and just the right size so that we have a little bit of space, but not too much to look after. 

One thing that I really hated leaving at our old house was my veggie boxes that Aaron had built after we moved into our old house.  I knew that I could have a veggie garden at our new house but I was so sad having to leave something that Aaron actually built for us as a family.  

The day that our new house settled my amazing friends Annette and Kelvin came to our old house and dug up a couple of our special trees and bushes that the new owner of our house gave us permission to take with us.  I hated having to leave my whole garden behind, but it was nice being able to bring a couple of special things that Aaron had planted after Noah passed away.  

They replanted them at our new house and we were hoping that they would survive the trauma of being moved even though it was summer.   Amazingly they have.  I can't wait for spring and summer to see them flowering again, knowing that they were orginally planted by Aaron.

Nettie and Kelv are amazing gardeners and knew how much I loved having a veggie garden.  A few weeks after we moved they grabbed me at church and asked me what I was doing the following Saturday. I told them that we weren't doing anything and Nettie said 'we are coming around.  Kelvin has got a couple of raised garden beds he'll put together and we will get your veggie garden ready'.  

I was so happy to know that I could still have a veggie garden and that it wasn't going to take ages to get one together as I knew it would be a lot of work for me to do it on my own.  

The next Saturday they turned up with the boxes already put together and a ute full of soil and pea straw. 

I already knew where I wanted them to go as it's a spot that gets the sun all day long.   The previous owners of the house already had a small veggie box which was full of zucchinis and beetroot when we moved in.

The boys had fun helping out, filling the boxes up with soil.

It hardly took any time and I had some new raised veggie boxes, ready to be planted out.  Thank you so much Nettie and Kelv - you guys are the biggest legends ever.  It would've taken me forever to do on my own.

A few days later my friends Karina and Gordon popped by for a visit to talk to me about sorting out a veggie garden (Gordon is also an awesome gardener).  They were happily surprised that Nettie and Kelv had already come to help me out.  A day later they arrived with a heap of seedlings which they even planted out for me!  I have all my winter veggies planted out, and can't wait until they're ready to eat.

I'm always reminding my boys that yes, we have had some terrible things happen to us over the past eighteen month, but we have also had so many blessings.  One of my biggest blessings is to have so many amazing friends who just jump in to help us out.   I'm sure Aaron and Noah are smiling down all the time, so grateful that people let us know that we aren't alone.  

Marakoopa Caves

Before school holidays began my friend Pip asked me what we were planning on doing on the holidays. I told her we had a few plans and that I was thinking of taking the boys to the caves at Mole Creek one day.  It was always hard to do certain activities as a family because of Noah's wheelchair so it was only something we had done once before - four years ago when Noah was home with his carer Di for the day.

When Pip's son Oliver heard that we were thinking of going to the caves, he said that he wanted to go also and asked Pip if they could add it to their holiday list that they had just written out.   We thought it would be fun to go together, so organised a day that would work for both of us.

I mentioned to my friend Simone that we were going to go and she said she'd love to come along too and before we knew it there were thirty of us all going at the same time.  It was so nice to have so many people to go with.   Luckily Simone rang up and checked before we got there, because they decided that because so many of us were going, that they would arrange a separate tour for our group.

Just as we arrived at the entrance of the cave we were met by a tour guide and group coming out of the caves.  The guide then told us that unfortunately the power had just gone off and they wouldn't be able to do our tour until the power was restored.  There was an accident where someone had knocked a power pole and it was just being fixed.  Luckily Pip knew one of the workers who was restoring the power, and he told her it would only take half an hour, so the kids had fun running around and playing together while we waited.

 

 We finally got to go in and the kids were so excited.  

I had forgotten how incredible it is inside. 

 

It's always really interesting listening to the guide tell us how the caves formed.

It was 9 degrees celcius inside the caves.  We were all rugged up expecting it to be a lot colder, but it wasn't too bad.

The tour is awesome and set up so well with lots of lights, paths and rails. 

I was worried that Kobe would be scared but he loved it.  I think having lots of friends there with us helped as he could see that everyone else was having fun and weren't scared.   He held onto Jay's hand the whole time.
Harri loved it when we could see the underground rivers running through the caves.

It was such a great day and it was so nice to go with so many friends and family.   It's definitely something we will do again as it's a great school holiday activity you can do rain, hail or shine.

Hail Storm

We have been keeping really busy during our school holidays over the past two weeks.   We have planned out each day and always make sure that we have something to do as it makes it easier to get through the long days without Aaron and Noah.    I have learnt these holidays that it's often the spontaneous, unplanned things that are the most memorable.  We loved our unplanned tour of the firestation last week, and today we had the most amazing storm which I think the boys will remember for a long time.

We were out at an appointment when it started hailing.  We were excited to watch it out of the window and the hail got bigger and bigger as a huge thunder storm started.  After our appointment we ran through the hail which was still falling to get to our car.  As we started driving home we saw the most beautiful double rainbow appear.

The rainbow became so vibrant and was the brightest and clearest rainbow we had ever seen.  We had fun driving to see if we could get to the end of the rainbow and was amazed that we could sit right under the end of it.  Unfortunately we didn't find a pot of gold at the end :)  As we were almost home I had to pull over again to take another photo on my phone.  The autumn colours, rainbow and white hail on the ground just looked amazing together.

 

When we got home we were amazed that the hail was even thicker on our front lawn than what we saw in town.   Our lawn and garden was white and it looked like snow.    We couldn't wait to jump out of the car to play in it.   The sky turned an amazing colour as the clouds were starting to clear away.



The boys were so excited as we only ever see snow if we drive to the mountains during the winter to see it.   I told them that we've already had our snow trip this year ;)

After we played for ages out the front we came inside to get warm and then Harri yelled 'quick Mum!!! Come and look at the backyard!!'.  The backyard was covered even more than the front. 

There is still hail on our lawn now - five hours later!  I'm sure the boys will remember the hail storm as a highlight of the school holidays.