Now on to the exciting stuff - our family vacation! Andrew had an advanced paediatric lifesaving course in Mackay that backed onto his 3 weeks vacation, so we decided to come along and turn it into a holiday! It also helped that he got $900 towards travel for the course, it took a nice dent out of our holiday budget! We woke up at 3am Tuesday morning to start the drive (we were told that was the way to do it with kids!) but didn't end up getting out of the house until 3:45 because I had to feed Hazel etc! I bought Andrew some energy drinks so that he could stay awake, and the rest of us slept for a good 4 hours! We had a little breakfast break and got the kids dressed, then continued along our way. We stopped in Charters Towers at the McDonalds a few hours later so that the kids could get out some energy! We had a couple more stops and all in all it took us about 16 hours to get to Mackay. The kids did so well and they love just being able to watch shows. Maybe that's a cop-out on parenting to let them watch shows the whole time we drive, but it sure saved our sanity...
The next morning we dropped Andrew off at the hospital for the course and went back to the caravan park. We opted for that over a hotel because there is so much to do at them here! Our cabin was right across from the jumping pillow, where the kids spent a lot of their time! There was also a pool with a waterslide (they only went in it once because it was so cold!), splash park (again only once) bouncy pillow, mini golf, tyre maze and little playground. We did mini golfing and the bouncy pillow the most! Charlie and Elly called it "golf coursing" as in: "Mom, can we go golf coursing now?"
We went over to Amy and Brandon Steeds house for dinner Thursday night, it was nice to see familiar faces from back home. Their little girl Hazel and Elly got along so well! I almost wish we lived there so they could be bestie.
Friday was a bit of a gong show, we had to drop Andrew off at the hospital for the last day of his course, then get back to the cabin to pack up and check out before 10am. Then we were homeless for the day! We ended up going to a beach nearby to play in the sand. We got attacked by swooping magpies on the way from the parking lot to the beach which was so stressful because I knew it would happen again on our way back to the van! (and to the toilet 3 times and to the playground... I hate magpies!) The beach was almost deserted and I wouldn't let the kids go in the water because I was all alone and carrying Hazel! So they played in the sand for a bit, then we went to the park and had a little picnic. Then we headed over to a mall by the hospital to get a late lunch and wait for Andrew to be finished his course. All 3 kids fell asleep on the way there, and so I parked for almost 2 hours and let them nap while I tried to get ready for our family pictures that Amy Steed was going to take after Andrew was done. (I've always wanted beach family pictures and this was my chance!) I felt a little bad I let the kids sleep so long because the mall had a really cool indoor play place that they could have spent a lot longer at!
When we were leaving the mall I was trying to listen to the GPS and ended up turning the van into one of those huge cement poles that hold up the car park and I did significant damage to the door... it still works fine, there is just a huge scrape and dent... oh dear, my first accident! Luckily Andrew is super forgiving and didn't really mind at all. (It looks so bad - we got a quote back here in Mt. Isa and they want to replace the whole door for a cost of $4000... yeah not happening, so we're going to try and fix the dent and do a cut and polish....)
We picked him up and Amy met us at the hospital, then we followed her to the beach! She brought her girls and Elly was thrilled to run around with (big) Hazel for a while longer! We got some good pictures! It was so windy and a bit chilly but the kids did great. After pictures we started the drive up to Airlie Beach (about 3 hours) where we were meeting Nima and Shazra for a little bit of a tropical getaway! Friday was a LONG day but worth it!
Family pictures and tropical getaway still to come...
 |
| Awake one minute... |
 |
| asleep the next! |
 |
| Mini golfing! |
 |
| Also known as "golf coursing" |
 |
| At the beach! |
 |
| The damage... |
