As randomly mentioned, Kristy and Oscar joined me on Friday in Sydney for the Labour Day long weekend. Jason, Louise, baby Adam (who Oscar nicknamed “Ambo”) were our generous hosts.

Jason’s brother Richard is staying with them at the moment too, and he generously cooked all our meals for the weekend. It was amazing; his fajitas were a definite highlight! I’m told he does parties and weekends so long as you pony up for the airfares, and by my reckoning, it would be well worth it!

Whenever we go away with Oscar, his first night’s sleep in a foreign location/cot can only be (generously) described as “rubbish”, and consequently, we had a tired little boy on our hands on Saturday. To his credit, he did manage to stay pretty sparky for our morning visit to The Woo to meet Lisa and Damien’s new baby, Michael.

I’m sure that most of his spark came from the fun he was having playing with Damien and the fan, not to mention his excitement at being able to say Lisa’s name over and over again (“LEE-tah! LEE-tah!”).

Sydney is world renowned for dining, and not only because of Richard’s fajitas. We also enjoyed an amazing lunch at The Boathouse at Summer Bay Palm Beach, about an hour’s drive (hence an hour’s nap for the kids) from the city.

Their menu was so good that it was tough to choose just one thing, and every meal that came out while we watched from the queue made me change my mind! I finally settled on the fish ‘n chips though; it was a generous serving and deliciously prepared. Highly recommended!

Being Oscar’s first trip to Sydney, we figured we should get at least a couple of photos of him with some of Sydney’s famous landmarks, so on Sunday we took a boat ride from Kirribilli (where the PM lives) into Circular Quay. Ben’s awesome photo of Ted with the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge in the background convinced us that Mrs Macquarie’s Chair was the vantage point that we were searching for, but time was working against us; there was no way we were going to make it all the way around Farm Cove before sunset.

To save ourselves a bit of time, we decided to catch the choo choo train instead of walking. Asides from the speed advantage, this was beneficial for three reasons:

• We got to have a (brief!) tour of the botanical gardens, and learn a bit of its history;
• Kids under two ride free; and (most importantly)
• The kids loved it!

We jumped off the train on the other side of Farm Cove and did our best to get a photo to signify the occasion.

As predicted, the sun had well and truly set by the time we got back to Circular Quay for our return ferry ride across the harbour. Our best option for getting back to the cars was to jump off at Luna Park and then walk, which was a huge bonus for me as it meant I could take a photo of the city lights.

The rest of our three days seemed to fly past in a blur of chasing kids, parks, and just chatting with the Lowes (who we hope to see in Brisbane sometime soon – hint, hint!). It was a great weekend though, and I have to admit that I could easily see myself living in Sydney… if only I could convince all my Brisbane friends to relocate, and the real estate down there wasn’t so tooting expensive!

Photos in the Labour Day in Sydney album on Google+

This amazing recap of our holiday in Fiji is jointly brought to you by Ben and Michelle, Louisa and Steve, and Gerrod and Kristy

G: There were a lot of problems with our recent holiday to Fiji.

L: Ok that’s a little “glass half empty for me”, but I’ll play along…

G: Well, lets look at the evidence! To start with, our resort got pummeled by a king tide on the day before we flew out, which caused flooding to 30 of its rooms. Our fears were alleviated by our travel agent (and even from the resort itself) that everything was fine, but it still put us a little on edge.

K: Ok, it may have put you a “little” on edge, but it put me a LOT on edge.

G: Things didn’t get better on the night we arrived, when the fire alarm – combined with a very urgent message of, “Please evacuate the building immediately” – had Kristy and I convinced that we were about to get whaled by a tsunami. As it turns out, it was only a false alarm which they suspect was caused by someone smoking in their room, but once again we felt as though our holiday may have started on the wrong foot.

L: Still laughing at my imaginary visions of Kristy bolting for higher ground. On the other hand Steve and I were waiting around in our room praying that the kids didn’t wake up with the super loud alarm and watching what everyone else was doing. We ended up not evacuating, lucky it was a false alarm I guess…

M: The Priebes also assumed it was a ‘burnt toast’ kind of alarm and waited it out from the comfort of our bed. Kristy vowed that next time something like that happens part of her escape plan will involve entering our room and saving Ted (from his overly relaxed parents)!

K: Your imaginary visions can be no funnier than the real thing. Bathrobe streaming behind me, I was yelling things like “wear closed in shoes!” and “forget the passports, just run!” And boy, after that level of stress, did I feel like I needed a holiday!

G: But by far, the most unfortunate of all was the sickness! Almost all of our party of ten managed to get some form of virus while we were away. For the most part, it was your everyday cold-and-flu type of symptoms – sore throats, running noses, dry coughs – more than likely caused by our bodies relaxing after the stresses of work. But poor old Ben took it all to the next level, contracting gastro on day four, which almost took him out of action completely!

L: Almost all. All except Louisa, Oliver and Ethan I think. Obviously not enough stress in our camp

M: And the suckiest bit? That we’re still dealing with gastro, passed on to the nine month old. We’re fast running out of clean clothes, sheets….mattresses. Ugh. At least we were home before this fun started.

K: Oscar and I are still suffering, though we wisely saved the worst of our sickness for Brisbane. You forgot to mention that the kids weren’t booked on the return flight for some reason. It’s a good thing none of them look Fijian or it might have appeared to be a really poorly organised attempt at child smuggling!

G: And so, was our holiday a failure? Goodness me, no! In fact, I think it was quite the opposite – a fantastic, week-long escape from work! And it was warm and sunny nearly every day, and the glorious blue skies made an excellent backdrop for the palm trees.

L: I thought the Shangri-La Resort was excellent too. It had at least 5 different restaurant eating options, 4 pools, a park for the bigger kids, beautiful views of the water and the rooms were nice too. I really liked the layout and the fact that there were so many easy options around.

M: It was a great resort, and my expectations of the beach were very much exceeded.

G: We had practically no agenda, and given that we were all a little under the weather, we were forced to just slow down and relax – so that’s exactly what we did! Most days were spend lazing by the pool, taking the kids for a swim, or enjoying a meal (or a cocktail!) in one of the resort’s restaurants. It was a great way to spend a week!

K: The pool side relaxing was definitely awesome! And the resort staff were terrific. Within a day or two many of them had learned all the kids names and greeted us with a jovial “Bula!” each time we passed by. And having live guitar/ukelele ensembles at each restaurant was a treat, especially for the littlies who were transfixed.

K: It’s such a shame though that it’s impossible to get a country’s real flavour without knowing a local. If you ask to visit a regular village they want to take you to a theme park with dance performances and kava drinking. Or a palm furniture factory.

L: A major highlight of Fiji was the babysitting services that were offered. For about $5 AUD an hour we hired a babysitter to look after the kids and we did this for many lunch times + evenings. It really made it a good break and meant that we had some adult time too!

G: We did manage to venture from the safety of our resort a few times, though. Our best trip was to Kula Eco Park – effectively a small zoo, only a short drive from our resort. They had quite a few native animals on display, some of which were extremely friendly!

L: We also did a few things around the resort including a Banana boat ride, a short sail on a catamaran and lots of swimming. We could have done with some more time to experience that elusive sunset cruise, snorkelling and tennis and to suck up some more of that free internet access.

K: And don’t forget the weird coconut oil massage! I lay there for ages trying to identify the smell and wondering why I felt like I was about to be baked in an oven. They must have lathered about a litre on each person, including a generous serving in Ben’s eyes.

G: All too quickly, our week in Fiji was over and done with, and we very reluctantly left at 5 AM on Saturday morning (our flight was crazy early!).

L: I hearby vow to never get up at 4am for a flight again!

L: All in all I think our first joint overseas trip with families was a good achievement. It’s a shame that sickness clouded the trip but on the bright side the kids all did well on their first holiday together and it was a great break from day-to-day!

M: We had some fun times in a glorious setting with great mates.

M: And I hereby vow that next time I’ll leave the boys (and the double case of ‘man-flu’) at home! Girls trip anyone?

What a long day it’s been! First we had a one-hour drive to Gatwick airport (starting around 4:30 AM this morning), followed by a two hour flight (from London to Milan), and then nearly four hours on the train! But finally, finally, we arrived in Vernazza (“ver-NAT-zah” as the lady at the train station corrected me). This will be our home-base for the next four days and nights, while we explore the five towns of Cinque Terre.

Since we didn’t actually arrive until around 4 PM this afternoon, we decided to just take it easy and wonder around the town, enjoying the local sites that Vernazza had to offer. We’ve already sampled the local espresso (delicious!), gelati (delicious!) and the beer (delicious!), as well as having our first italian meal (delicoius!) and a chinotto (delicious – well, Kristy didn’t think so, but I liked it!).

Tomorrow we’ll be hitting the walking trails and burning off some of those calories; but for now I think we’ll call it a night. Did I mention that it’s been a long day?