Firefighters

We are loving the new four term education system that Tasmania has started this year.  It's so nice to be on school holidays already.  We usually have a longer Easter holiday than we had this year, but then we don't usually have holidays until June.  To be already be on holidays at the end of April feels like a luxury. 

Holidays are really hard since Aaron passed away, because the days can be really long and the weeks seem to go on forever.  Easter turned out to be harder than I thought it would be, but I think it was because it was not only time off our normal routine, and also a special occasion.   I wasn't dreading these school holidays as much as I knew we were all ready for a break from school and work, and we are feeling really happy in our new home.

We've only been on holidays for a few days and have a week and a half to go, but we have been keeping busy and have our days planned out for the rest of the holidays.  As long as I have a plan about how we are going to fill our days I feel okay.   Today though our plans totally changed and it turned out to be the best day of our holidays so far.

Today we were in town and ran into our friend Erin who own the beautiful beach house that we spent time at during summer. She was working (she's a police officer) and told us that her husband Chris was also working (he is a firefighter) and would love to show the boys through the fire station if we wanted to go around before we came home.

When Jay was a lot younger our friend Mark had taken us on a tour.  Mark's wife Nicole was Noah's first carer who worked in our home.  We loved her so much and are still friends with them.  Jay couldn't remember going on the tour so it was fun to take the boys there today. It was also nice to see Mark as he was working.

The first thing we saw was the fire pole.  Kobe was being shy at first and didn't want to have a go, and said 'it's boring' which cracked us all up.  Mark joked that when he did the tour for Jalen that it wasn't boring, and it must've been Chris' tour that was boring Kobe.

 

He didn't think it was boring when he got to sit in the truck.   Chris showed the boys the difference between each truck and explained when they would use each one.   The boys kept talking about the bush fires we had seen on the news over summer.

Chris told us that the front passenger seat is where the boss sits. Kobe thought that was cool and kept saying 'I want to be the boss'. 

 

 Chris turned on the different sirens and put on the lights for them which was cool..

and a little loud.

He explained to the boys what all the buttons and hoses were for and how it all worked. There's so much to know and so much training that they have to continually do. 

We were lucky to catch them doing a drill just before we left, so we got to watch them using the hoses. 

Being there reminded me that I should change the batteries in our smoke alarms, especially since I had no clue when the previous owners of our house had changed them.  When I mentioned it Mark asked me how many alarms we have and where they are placed.  When I told him that we have just one in the hall outside our bedrooms, he asked if we would be home later in the day and said they would come around and put new smoke alarms that have batteries that last ten years in each of our bedrooms for us. 

A few hours later a fire truck pulled up with five firefighters who put in five new smoke alarms for us and also checked our power points to make sure that everything was safe.    How's that for service!  It feels good to know that we have new fire alarms which we don't have to worry about for ten years. 

We had a great day learning more about firefighting and it was also good that the boys became more aware of what they do and how important it is to know certain things like having a plan to get out during a fire, how to get out safely and to have working smoke alarms.  Obviously  you don't have to always plan your day out to have a good one.   Sometimes spur of the moment things are even better.