A Weekend With The Youth

Aaron left on Friday night for another weekend away on the mainland - his fourth one this year! This time it was for a trip with the youth from our ward to visit the temple and spend some time together in Sydney. I was excited for him to go, but was also wishing that I got to go, as I knew how great it would've been for them. Aaron is lucky as he works with them every week as a leader in our ward, but I am a stake leader which means I work with all the youth in northern Tassie, rather than just in one ward. I love what I do as it means we get to spend time with all the youth, but then you don't get a lot of one on one time like the ward leaders do.

They had been planning the trip for a while now and have been busy fundraising all year. They did an awesome job raising all the money for the trip. The youth and other leaders went up on Thursday night, but Aaron went up a night later as he couldn't really get a day off work. School has been great with letting him get time off to come to appointments to see Drs about Noah's leg lately, so he didn't want to 'stretch the friendship' too much :)

The boys weren't very happy about their Dad going away again but Jay and Harri were okay about it when they knew it was just two days. Kobe on the other hand wasn't happy at all! When Aaron gave him a kiss and said goodbye at the airport he burst into tears!

We spoke to Aaron a few times throughout the weekend and he was having a great time. He kept saying he wishes he got to go up on Thursday, but was so glad that he went even though it was later than everyone else. The boys loved talking to him on the phone. On Saturday Kobe went over to our bookshelf and got a photo frame down and brought it over to me. It was a photo of Aaron with the boys and Kobe pointed to Aaron and then made his sound that means he wants something - kind of an 'ugh!' and then pointed to the phone and did the same sound. I asked him if he wanted to talk to Daddy and he gave me a HUGE smile and said 'es' (yes) and was so excited! I rang Aaron and Kobe sat listening to him talk with the biggest grin. It was so cute.

One time I rang him and he was in the mini bus traveling to the DFO. It was really noisy and everyone sounded like they were having a good time. I asked him who was in the bus and he told me and I knew I was on speaker phone and said 'oh so you are on the loser bus then!?'. I think they were all very impressed!

They went to the temple twice. Aaron only got to go once but said it was great to be there with all the youth, and said that they all loved it.



On the Saturday night they went to ANZ stadium to watch Sydney V Geelong. I actually went and bought the tickets for them the week before. I rang Ticketek and asked for 'bronze seating' knowing that was the cheapest seating you could get as that is what they could afford. The guy tells me there is no bronze seating left as all the bronze seating was sold out. I was really disappointed for them as I knew they couldn't afford to get other seats. He then tells me that another way to go about it is to actually go to a Ticketek agency as they often have a different release of seats than they do. I went to the agency at Meadow Mews and told the lady the story and she was like 'no I'm pretty sure we all have access to the same seats' and checks on her computer. Low and behold there ARE bronze seats available, but the only ones available were right up the top. Aaron had been before and said you could see well wherever you sat, so I grabbed 23 tickets for them. Then when Aaron gets home with the photos I cracked up as to how empty the stadium was! So much for there being no bronze seats left!

Aaron was especially excited about the weekend as it meant he got to spend some time with Chrish. Chrish hung out with them on Saturday night and all day Sunday.

Supposedly it was an awesome game to watch - especially live with Geelong just winning by a goal.

Last night we went out to the airport to pick Aaron up. The boys were counting down the hours all day. Harri kept checking with me 'after tea we are picking up Daddy, aren't we Mum!?'. Kobe ran to the front door when I asked him if he wanted to go and see Daddy. They were so excited to see him - and not just for the Krisy Kremes :) Check out Kobe checking out the photo on Arron's camera.

It was nice seeing how excited (and tired!) they all were when they got off the plane. You could see what a great time they had and how close they had all become in just a few days. Everyone was hugging each other when they left. It was really nice to see.

It's nice to see that all their hard work and effort pay off. I know it is something that they will never forget.