Finally, our first post

We are already two weeks into our trip so it is time to finally get some blog posts together. With 2 (very active) boys in our travels there just doesn't seem to be any spare time!! We are now in France staying at a very nice Chalet in the French Alps, but here are some posts from what the four of us have been doing so far on the trip.

Our first stop was Melbourne where we had a wonderful couple of days with Paul, Rosemary and Alex which went way too quickly. Our Qantas flight over on the Saturday (2 August) went quite smoothly and Jordan was quite comfortable having a sleep on Heather during the flight. We had a big rental car with 2 baby seats installed waiting for us for our drive to Paul and Ro's house in Ashburton (about 30 minutes away). That night we had some really nice up-market fish and chips (i.e. no chiko rolls or dims sims for sale) for dinner  before the 4 of us all squeezed into the spare bedroom for the night - this is destined to be baby #2's bedroom from December so it lucky we got our visit to Melbourne in now!

On Sunday morning we caught up with some of Heather's side of the family who live in Melbourne - Carl and Sharon; Maxine, Byron, Luke and Lara; and Adele. It had been a freezing night in Melbourne (literally), so Matthew, Luke and Lara had a great time smashing the ice from the bird bath onto the brick paving! Needless to say Matthew had a very wet jacket by the end of it. Carl and Sharon had cooked up a huge late breakfast for us to all tuck into while Alex and Matthew had a great time playing with Matthew's second cousins Luke and Lara, especially on the piano.


After a failed attempt at getting Matthew to have a lunchtime sleep it was off to a playground - a huge one at nearby Markham Reserve. Matthew and Alex had a great time on the huge range of equipment that was there - slides, ladders, spinners, ramps, see-saws etc.

Paul had taken Monday off work and Ro had moved her work day so after breakfast the seven of us headed to a great train-themed playground right next to Hartwell Train Station and a cafe (coffees for the adults and trains stopping at the station for the boys). We stayed there for morning tea and an early lunch before heading home for another failed attempt at a lunchtime sleep for Matthew! Oh well, I guess the new surroundings and having Alex to play with were far more important than a sleep!

By afternoon our quick visit was over and we packed up (not an easy task!) and headed off to stay at a hotel at Melbourne Airport. Our long trip to the UK started early on Tuesday morning so it was easier to stay at the hotel connected to the International Terminal than have a super-early start from Paul and Ro's and deal with morning traffic and a rental car drop-off. We had a stir-fry dinner in the airport terminal then went down for an early night before our looooong journey to London the next morning. The 9hr flight to Hong Kong on Qantas was during the day and Matthew was having way too much fun to have a sleep. On arrival Matthew and Jordan had a visit to the cockpit and donned the pilots' hats as well - great fun!! We then had a 6hr layover and used the Qantas lounge to have some dinner and setup the travel cot for Matthew to have an evening sleep.....you guessed it, no chance! Our British Airways flight was called at 10.30pm so we popped Matthew into a stroller to walk to the gate - he fell asleep within minutes and didn't wake up for another 8 hrs, which was hardly surprising having been awake for nearly 20hrs! It was then off to London on our 12hr flight to then pick-up our rental car and drive to Bexhill for a week by the sea with Heather's Dad Colin and Margie. More to come in our next post!