quick trip to Sydney

Jetstar had cheap flights to Sydney.  So I impulsively booked them for our family to go down and visit the cousins in January.

We had a great time.  Stood in front of many iconic Sydney landmarks.  Ate much delicious Sydney food (is it wrong to wish a Sydney Lebanese restaurant with side businesess in Italian Gelato, Turkish Pide and Greek Baklava would open up in our suburb in Brisbane? - this is my regular diet I Must Eat When Visiting Sydney).

(warning - long photo blog post - smooshing in photos from a whole week into one post...possibly not wise)

Six cousins on the steps of the Opera House (the seventh cousin was small and at home).

Watching 'Wind in the Willows' in the Botanic Gardens - excellent! (thanks Aunty Katie for the ticket presents!).

This cruise ship was enormous.  I'm not sure I would like to be on such a large ship.  I would be disaster managing the whole time.  Pretty sure they don't show 'Titanic' as their on board movie.

Lunch in the back yard with all the fam.

Smiley boys!  Love it.

These are the three second born cousins.  In their own families they are a bit of an outlier - but put them together and the genetics makes sense.

Granny and all her grandkids.  In the sun.  Squinting.

So lovely to see the cousins playing together - even though we are states apart they get on well.

We visited my friend's farm in Gerringong.  Completely gorgeous and lovely to see them for an all too brief catch up.

Some of her chickens.  Producing tasty eggs in their chicken caravan.  The is truly organic and free range.  Impressive.

I pretended to drive the quad bike.  This was tolerated.  I didn't want to take off and dump all of the children out of the trailer.

A man and his pigs.  Or, as I visualized them, tasty sides of bacon running around.

Thanks for the lovely catch up Fi.  If you like, you can live close again.  Because I miss you.  Although I am pretty sure Brisbane cannot compete with your farm view.

On the way back from Gerringong we went to this awesome trampoline park.  I didn't jump (after two children I felt I couldn't adequately guarantee the wiseness of doing a lot of jumping) - but the girls and Chris had a hard core hour of jumptastic fun.

A special shout out to Aunty Katie and Uncle Matt, who had our children for three days extra in Sydney while we went back to Brisbane.  I guess it is our turn next to send us your children!

Did I mention I love the food in Sydney? mmmmmm Gelato...