A Merry Sydney Christmas

Well, today was our last in Sydney. We've had a busy couple of days exploring the city and we're ready to go home and put our feet up!!! Today we had breakfast down at Darling Harbour and mooched around the shops. We came across 'The Great British Lolly Shop' so stocked up on mint humbugs, licquorice torpedos and rhubarb and custards for the flight home!

We landed back at Brisbane at 3pm, after a Merry Sydney Christmas.

Tourists in Sydney

Today we slept in late...8am is late for us! Once we were up and out we met some friends in Darling Harbour for breakfast. Kevin and I used to work with Rachel at Southampton General. Next to Rachel in the above photo is her fiance Dave and her brother Richard. It was great to catch up.

After breakfast we walked to the Sydney tower where we were sent up in a lift taking 40 seconds to reach 250 metres to the observation deck. The 360 degree views were great! This is when we got our first glimpse of Sydneys icons, the Opera House and Harbour bridge.

After our visit to the Sydney tower we walked the route to circular key to get close up views of the bridge and the Opera house.

I know it's a bit of a cliche, but the Opera house really does take your breath way at first sight...it's spectacular soaring shell-like exterior is a must see! The architecture is amazing.

By the time we got here, we were pretty tired, as we had done a fair bit of walking today! So, it was a trip back to Darling Harbour on one of the numerous ferries from Circular quay for a yummy italian dinner!

Sydney day 2.....we're all in this together....

Today we did a bit more exploring around Darling Harbour and had a visit to The Maritime Museum. We also climbed aboard 'Endeavour' a replica of the ship which Captain James Cook sailed on for 3 years. Grace and Anna thoroughly enjoyed this as they have both learnt all about Cook and other explorers at school this year.

After a coffee (or hot chocolate in my case!) at Starbucks we went along to the Capitol Theatre to see High School Musical. This was booked several months ago when we first planned our trip to Syney, but we only told the girls about it last night as we walked past the theatre on the way to our hotel last night!

This was the stage curtain

And the grand finale where you weren't supposed to take photos....oops, how did I get this then?

It was a fantastic show....even Kevin enjoyed it!!

Darling Harbour

After an 'eat as much as you like' buffet in Pizza hut, we took our suitcases to the hotel and then went to walk off our 'Christmas dinner'. It's such fun exploring a new place. We were suprised to find that Darling Harbour was just a short walk from our hotel. The place was buzzing with activity.

Here is the Christmas tree at Darling Harbour:

And here is the Sydney tower (wonder if it's as good as the Auckland one??)

Christmas dinner in Sydney

We landed in Sydney at 5pm today and were transported to the city centre by taxi to an italian restaurant which we'd booked back in August for a nice Christmas dinner (even if it was to be pizza and pasta!) Unfortunately when we got there it was closed!!!! Not quite sure why, particularly as we had email confirmation of our booking prior to leaving Brisbane this morning!!

Anyway, we weren't going to let it ruin our day......we walked around the corner with our suitcases on wheels and found a Pizza Hut. So, this is where we had Christmas dinner 2008, in Pizza Hut, Chinatown, Sydney!!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Christmas arrived in Brisbane very early today as Anna woke at 4.59am! It is a hot day, and the sun was shining in through her window very warmly, but it was the excitement of the day ahead that really woke her I'm sure!


We are flying to Sydney this afternoon for a 3 day break. The girls have only found out in the last couple of days although we booked the trip back in July!! We've managed to keep it a secret until a few days ago and I'm glad we spilt the beans as it was so hard trying to get organised!

Merry Christmas and Blessings for the new year ahead, from a hot and sticky Brisbane!

Carols in the park

Today was Carols in the park at our local park. We turned up with our folding chairs, esky (cool box!) holding wine and beers and nibbles, and had a lovely relaxing evening. We sat and listened to all the local school choirs singing, soloists singing carols and there was candy floss stalls, pizza, hot dogs, Santa, reindeer etc.

Check out the beautiful sunset!

Queensland thunderstorms

They're big!!! They are also scary! In the three years we have been here, we've only had to suffer these hailstones 2 or 3 times. You don't go out in them, you hide indoors!! They hurt! They also dent cars, rip bushes and branches from trees and are extremely noisy on the roof!

We have been fortunate where we live not to suffer any great damage unlike many across the city over the last few weeks who have had major damage to their homes by lightning and heavy rain.

Our car took a good battering this evening though:

Camping in Bundaberg

It's school holidays at the moment and we have just got back from a camping holiday in Bundaberg (on the coast 5 hrs drive north of Brisbane). We've had this holiday booked for quite some time and hadn't planned to be moving house this month as well, but it will all fall into place I'm sure! As we are moving house in 2 weeks time, and needed to find a rental property before we went away, our holiday was cut from 7 nights to 4, but nonetheless we've had a lovely few days break.










Our campsite was right on the beach....very relaxing waking to the waves crashing onto the sand every morning.





One morning I was awake early (5am....which isn't difficult in Queensland with the heat and the sun), so I walked along the beach at sunrise. There were a few other people doing the same thing.









Now it's time to pack boxes. We move house on 17th October!!!

We're on the move.....

It's time to build the next one!

More spiders!!

They are all out at the moment!! Found this hairy thing in my kitchen yesterday....he's obviously been in someone elses kitchen before mine as he only had 7 legs!!

A fine specimen

,

of a redback spider!!!

Kevin found this little horror with it's nest, complete with babies, under the rim of the pool! I'm so glad he found it before we jumped in...we might not have come out again!

Night Fever

Well, it was actually Dance Fever.....and the night of the annual interschool dance challenge.

Dance Fever are a company who go into selected schools over here and teach kids to dance, and I mean proper dance, the jive, the fox trot, the cha cha, the tango etc etc

Each school gets a whole terms worth of teaching, in our case, it's term 3 every year and they learn the steps every Friday afternoon. At the end of the term, the schools whom have been learning that term, come together and have a huge dance off. There were four school competing last night: Imagine 800+ children warming up for the night dancing to the YMCA and the Macarena...it's a pretty awesome sight!!!

It's all done very professionally....boys dancing with girls, the boys wear a number on their backs and escort their young ladies to the floor, arms held high, and get into place following a spin!! It's a lovely 4 hours worth of entertainment and the children all get into 'Dance Fever' mood weeks before, shopping for the perfect outfit to compliment their partners, and of course the right shoes.

It's been a busy August....

We've had The Catholic Music Festival, The Olympics on TV, Book Week, and our appointment with Delta Goodrem,

and we finished the month today with the annual school fete. Guardian Angels School http://www.guardianangelswynnum.qld.edu.au/dev/default.asp always does a great fete....

with it's rides........

the fete dances.......

and the crazy hair stall!!!!!!!!!!!

Not to mention the hotdogs, pizza, sushi, strawberries and cream and slushies all under a blue sky with a temperature of 26 degrees, and it's still winter..........until tomorrow that is, when it's officially spring!!

It hasn't taken long.....

...they've only been citizens for 6 weeks!! Grace and Anna are real patriots........

Here they are sat in front of the TV this morning, as Sunrise (our breakfast TV show) broadcast live from Sydney airport showing the Australian Olympic Team arriving home from Beijing.

They even had flags waving!

I have to admit, I found it really quite exciting too.

Go the Aussies!!!!!

In this life......

I took the kids out of school early this afternoon and told the teachers we had an appointment....we did, infact, have an appointment, along with several hundred others, at our local shopping centre........ to see Delta Goodrem!

Delta was making an appearance to sing her new single and promote her upcoming tour. We arrived around 3pm and she was due on stage at 4pm. After an hour of standing and being encouraged to scream and shout by some guy from a local radio station, we were rewarded by an excellent performance by Delta. She is a great entertainer, and Grace and Anna were in awe!!!

After her two songs, we were encouraged to join a queue for autographs.....this queue moved very slowly!! Delta gave her fans much attention and was in no rush to get through the line of hundreds of people. After two and a half hours of moving approx 1 metre every 10 - 15 minutes, we finally reached the stage where Delta greeted Grace and Anna with a hug each. It was well worth the wait!

So, four hours after arriving at the shopping centre, we left again, tired, hungry and thirsty, but happy!!!

No prizes for the guy who took this photo. I should have taken it myself rather than being in it!!!