Easter Holidays
On Wednesday, March 19th at 9:30 pm we went to the airport for the long-awaited arrival of Grossmami and Grosspapi. The next day, the kids were proud to show off their school and classes. On Friday we started our big trip to Canberra, Sydney and back down around by coast to Melbourne. The first stretch to Canberra was 7 hours, which the kids handled very well (thanks to the DVD player in the car). Canberra, capital city of Australia, was very interesting. On the one hand well planned out, on the other a bit dead. The first morning I went for a jog around a lake and I felt like some kind of Roman athlete, the reason which was at first hard to fathom. No garbage, no old houses, big causeways, wide paths, nice bridges, few people. Lots of money and planning, but no life, really. Paradoxically, Canberra is known for its two big roundabouts, but what we found was that the city was full of stop lights, resulting in inefficient traffic flow. Remember, the place was half empty, but with the waits at the numerous stop lights, it may as well have been rush hour. What the place needs is some roundabouts! The first day we went to Questacon, which is the Auzzie version of Science World. The kids had a blast. Noemi and Lucas were brave and did the vertical drop slide, where you hang on to a bar and let yourself drop (freefall), only to be caught after a couple of meters by a steep slide… Fiona was a bit sick on this day and spent a lot of it in the wheelchair with mommy. The next morning I spent with Fiona while the others explored the parliament buildings. Later, I went with Lucas and Dolf to check out the Australian Institute of Sport and the War Memorial. On to Sydney, to the Meriton Towers (in the middle of downtown) where we had an apartment which fit all of us on the 68th floor. Needless to say, from that high up, the view was spectacular- in the day and in the night! Marianne and I went to see Don McLean in concert at the Sydney Opera House on the first night, while the grandparents took on the job of babysitting the kids. He was old, but put on quite a show! In our 5 days in Sydney we spent time at Circular Quay, Darling Harbour, the zoo, the aquarium, and at Manly Beach, which has a flavour all of its own. We ate out a lot, preferring Thai, of course. Our next stop, quite the opposite of the big city, was a beach house in Kiama. Part of a campground, it was really ON the beach and had a swimming pool, tennis courts and a little café. Here we pretty much just hung out and relaxed, recovering from our busy days in the city. I went snorkelling a bit, but only a bit. Being the only one out, I stayed close to shore, feeling that if there was a hungry shark in the bay the chances of being the one to be attacked would be 100%. Possibly with reason - just read in yesterdays news of a boy who was surfing and was attacked and killed by a shark. Noemi and Fiona spent literally hours in the hot tub (which wasn’t to hot), swimming and splashing. Marianne worked out her leg in the pool.
From Kiama, we weaved our way south down the coast, staying at a few more places including Lakes Entrance, where we had a superb apartment overlooking the water. Here we met up with my old Aussie friend Barb, who I hadn’t seen in 17 years. She had us all over for dinner and our kids and hers played nicely together while we enjoyed a traditional Aussie meal and local wine. Was there an evening on the trip where we didn’t share a bottle of wine? I don’t think so! On the last day of our trip we spent some hours at a place which had mini-golf, archery, driving range, a bungee trampoline, a merry-go-round and jumping castle. Then after 3 hours of driving we stopped in for our last Thai meal of the holidays, just down the road from our house (of course we had to continue the tradition and have wine with our meal).
It was an amazing two weeks: we saw and did a lot and just had a great time.
On Wednesday, March 19th at 9:30 pm we went to the airport for the long-awaited arrival of Grossmami and Grosspapi. The next day, the kids were proud to show off their school and classes. On Friday we started our big trip to Canberra, Sydney and back down around by coast to Melbourne. The first stretch to Canberra was 7 hours, which the kids handled very well (thanks to the DVD player in the car). Canberra, capital city of Australia, was very interesting. On the one hand well planned out, on the other a bit dead. The first morning I went for a jog around a lake and I felt like some kind of Roman athlete, the reason which was at first hard to fathom. No garbage, no old houses, big causeways, wide paths, nice bridges, few people. Lots of money and planning, but no life, really. Paradoxically, Canberra is known for its two big roundabouts, but what we found was that the city was full of stop lights, resulting in inefficient traffic flow. Remember, the place was half empty, but with the waits at the numerous stop lights, it may as well have been rush hour. What the place needs is some roundabouts! The first day we went to Questacon, which is the Auzzie version of Science World. The kids had a blast. Noemi and Lucas were brave and did the vertical drop slide, where you hang on to a bar and let yourself drop (freefall), only to be caught after a couple of meters by a steep slide… Fiona was a bit sick on this day and spent a lot of it in the wheelchair with mommy. The next morning I spent with Fiona while the others explored the parliament buildings. Later, I went with Lucas and Dolf to check out the Australian Institute of Sport and the War Memorial. On to Sydney, to the Meriton Towers (in the middle of downtown) where we had an apartment which fit all of us on the 68th floor. Needless to say, from that high up, the view was spectacular- in the day and in the night! Marianne and I went to see Don McLean in concert at the Sydney Opera House on the first night, while the grandparents took on the job of babysitting the kids. He was old, but put on quite a show! In our 5 days in Sydney we spent time at Circular Quay, Darling Harbour, the zoo, the aquarium, and at Manly Beach, which has a flavour all of its own. We ate out a lot, preferring Thai, of course. Our next stop, quite the opposite of the big city, was a beach house in Kiama. Part of a campground, it was really ON the beach and had a swimming pool, tennis courts and a little café. Here we pretty much just hung out and relaxed, recovering from our busy days in the city. I went snorkelling a bit, but only a bit. Being the only one out, I stayed close to shore, feeling that if there was a hungry shark in the bay the chances of being the one to be attacked would be 100%. Possibly with reason - just read in yesterdays news of a boy who was surfing and was attacked and killed by a shark. Noemi and Fiona spent literally hours in the hot tub (which wasn’t to hot), swimming and splashing. Marianne worked out her leg in the pool.
From Kiama, we weaved our way south down the coast, staying at a few more places including Lakes Entrance, where we had a superb apartment overlooking the water. Here we met up with my old Aussie friend Barb, who I hadn’t seen in 17 years. She had us all over for dinner and our kids and hers played nicely together while we enjoyed a traditional Aussie meal and local wine. Was there an evening on the trip where we didn’t share a bottle of wine? I don’t think so! On the last day of our trip we spent some hours at a place which had mini-golf, archery, driving range, a bungee trampoline, a merry-go-round and jumping castle. Then after 3 hours of driving we stopped in for our last Thai meal of the holidays, just down the road from our house (of course we had to continue the tradition and have wine with our meal).
It was an amazing two weeks: we saw and did a lot and just had a great time.
