Finally got there!

We just got back from a beautiful 4 days at St Helens. I have lots of photos to sort through, so am going to just blog one day at a time. I actually didn't think we were ever going to get there. First of all the morning we were supposed to leave Aaron went out to the van to go to the supermarket to get some last minute things before we left. Jalen came running back in saying 'Dad REALLY needs you, seriously!!'. I had no idea if he was actually serious or not, but went out to see what was going on.

Aaron was sitting in the van trying to get it started and it was totally dead! Luckily I can never not renew our roadside assistance with RACT as I panic I may get stuck one day with 4 boys in the van, so we gave them a call. I was expecting them to take forever like they always do, but 5 minutes later the RACT man was out our house telling us that someone (Kobe!!!) had left the park lights on over night and the battery was flat. Lucky it didn't take long to get it started and Aaron went for a bit of a drive just to make sure it would start again when we were actually ready to leave.

Around lunch time we were just about ready to leave when we got a phone call from Mum to say that Pop had passed away. We couldn't believe that we had just seen him the day before and now he was gone. It wasn't really a shock, but it still just seems so hard to believe.

We had planned on going to St Helens for a week, but when we heard the news about Pop we knew we were now only going away for 3-4 days at the most as we would be coming back for his funeral, and it suddenly looked like we had packed WAY too much. We finally got everything loaded up into the van and headed off to St Helens early afternoon.

When the boys were at Mum and Dad's last week I wasn't able to enjoy it totally, as I ended up gastro. It was so bad and reminded me a lot of having morning sickness, but it was worse as it was coming out both ends (too much info I know!). Usually I am so organised and packed way before we go anywhere, but I just couldn't do anything except sleep, spew and you know what else...

Aaron was great at helping out and packed most things for our trip away but I am good at remembering all the little things that are actually really important things when it comes to Noah. As we were heading out of Perth I remember looking at the time and feeling a bit stressed as it had taken us so long to get organised and on our way. I thought about what time it was and then started to calculate in my head when Noah would be due for his next feed, as I was hoping it wouldn't be until we got to St Helens as I wasn't keen on stopping along the way. Suddenly it hit me - we had forgotten to pack Noah's feeds!!!! I had 4 feeds for the day packed in his wheelchair bag and that was it!!!!!!! All morning I kept thinking that I had to grab his bottles of formula to make sure we didn't forget them and then it slipped my mind!!!

I groaned and slammed on the breaks just as we were outside Symonds Plains and asked Aaron if he packed any feeds. He groaned as well when we realised that neither of us had packed his feeds and had to turn around and go back to get them! Alison was house sitting for us and kindly met us at the top end of Kings Meadows with enough feeds for a week (just in case we decided to come home for Pop's funeral and go back down afterwards).

2 hours and 45 minutes later we were finally at St Helens (usually a 2 hour trip). It was too late to do anything really except unpack and settle in. The boys didn't seem to mind as they were just excited to be back and to check everything out. The whole way down they kept saying 'remember last year when...' or 'I can't wait to....'.

The shack is so close to the bay that it's easy to just go down for a walk or to just sit and watch the boys play anytime. We decided to all go for a walk and a row on the bay in the blow up boat. This photo is taken from the shack - it's great having the bay so close.

Kobe hated the beach last time we went to Bridport so we knew it was going to be a long week trying to get him used to the beach. He kept looking down at the sand and seaweed and wasn't sure whether he hated it or it looked fun.

It was such a beautiful night - the sun was just starting to set and the water was so calm on the bay.




Kobe surprised me and started walking in the water on his own. I was hoping that meant that the week was going to be a good one with him not worrying about the sand or water.


The boys had the week planned out with what they wanted to do - all Harri cared about was going fishing off the jetty,

and Jalen was excited to go to Binalong Bay and also the sand dunes.

It was a hard day after learning the news about Pop and still wanting to go away to have a few days away with the boys. On the way down Jalen asked if it was okay to feel happy even when someone has died. I asked him why and he said that it was sad that Pop died but he was also feeling happy that we were going on holiday. We told him that Pop was happy where he was and would also want us to be happy and it was okay to feel excited about having a holiday and to not feel guilty about it.

On the way down we talked a lot about Pop and that night Harri was sitting there and all of a sudden he just says 'Pop was the King of Pops!'. We cracked up laughing and I said 'wasn't Michael Jackson the King of Pop, Harri!?' and he laughed and then said 'no, Pop is the King of Pops!'. It was so cute and so true - Pop WAS the King of Pops and we were very lucky that he was our Pop.