A Year of Concerts

After Aaron passed away I took Jay and Harri to their first concert which was Taylor Swift.  They didn't love her but they were amazed at her concert and said they wanted to go to more concerts.  Kobe was disappointed that he didn't get to come to that one, but he was too young to justify paying for a ticket, but I promised him when he got older we would go to more concerts.


Earlier in the year we saw Ed Sheeran in Melbourne and then in August we went to Pink.  Kobe kept saying he wanted to see Taylor Swift as he missed out when the boys went, so for his birthday I surprised him with tickets.  He was so excited and we had to wait a long time till the concert. 


Harri really loves Sam Smith (and so do all of us) and begged me to buy tickets to see him.  I told him we couldn't afford to go as we had gone to so many other concerts this year (which wasn't really lying) but I was just as keen to go as he was and you never know when he's going to tour again so I bought tickets in January this year, and held onto them until Harri's birthday in September.    Harri told me he would've given up seeing Ed Sheeran, Pink and Taylor Swift to go to Sam Smith and was even looking up tickets online for weeks, letting me know how many tickets were left.  In the end they were sold out so he thought we missed out.


That was until he opened up his birthday present. It was so fun to surprise him!

The Taylor Swift and Sam Smith concerts were two weeks apart in November and we went to Sydney for both of them. It's very handy having a brother who lives in Sydney!   The first concert was Taylor Swift.  Jay and Harri don't love her but said they still wanted to go as they knew the concert would be good. Chrish also joined us.

 I had heard a lot about the concert from friends who had seen her in the USA and it was just as good as I imagined.  Everyone got an wrist band that lit up as soon as the concert started.  For some songs they were all the same colour, other songs they were different colours and for one song it even looked like a snake moving around the arena.  They also flashed.  Half the fun was watching the lights!

I took heaps of videos. This was the opening of Taylor Swift.

We spent the weekend in Sydney and it was good timing as Sculptures by the Sea was on at Bondi.  I had heard lots about it, so it was great to go there in person. It was a really hot day and it was so busy with so many people there for the same things.   I have been bad at taking my good camera places lately, so I'm always grateful to Chrish who is our official photographer.

While we were having lunch a cute Chinese tourist asked if she could take a photo with Kobe.  She kept saying how cute she was and grabbed his face and said 'he's like a prince!'.  It cracked us up and we kept teasing Kobe for weeks about how 'cute he is, like a prince' and he didn't appreciate it!

Two weeks later we went back to see Sam Smith.  Chrish didn't want to come with us this time.  All of us were so excited to see Sam Smith as his voice is amazing.  I love that my boys like such a range of music. Kobe was just as excited to see Sam as the other boys and all of us were singing out hearts out. 

I don't know how it's possible but his voice sounds even more incredible in real life than on his albums.

The three boys all said that Sam Smith was their favourite concert of the year, and I also loved it but I love Pink's music so she was my favourite out of all the concerts we went to.

While we were in Sydney for Sam Smith there was a brand new Star Wars exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum on, so we decided to check that out as well.  The boys love Star Wars and Aaron would've also loved it.

 It had original costumes from the movies on display as well as other memorabilia.

 We also checked out the rest of the Powerhouse Museum which was really cool. There were lots of interactive displays and it had a whole Wiggles section!

The next day we went to Taronga Zoo. We hadn't been there for many years and Kobe couldn't remember going, so it was fun to go back.   The views are always amazing from the zoo.

 We loved the seal show and the orangutans.

The boys know how lucky they are to go to so many concerts and special places this year.  I keep telling them that it's not going to be like this every year, especially as Jay is going off to Uni next year but that also made me want to make more special memories with all three boys before he leaves home. 


It's nice when we do special things to hear them say thanks for taking them and how much they appreciate it.  In many ways I feel like I'm trying to fill their lives with fun memories to replace the traumatic and sad ones, and I don't know if I'm doing the right thing, but when I see them smiling and having something to look forward to it helps my heart to heal also.