We’re facing down our last day in Australia. Tomorrow we delight in Sydney one last time before the bags are packed one final time and we’re on our way to the airport. A month away from responsibilities, schedules, carpooling, meetings, dishwashing, housecleaning, homework, violin practice, commuting and cold weather has been a true blessing. One of the greatest gifts from this trip is the ability to completely disconnect from the demands of daily life and all that pulls each one of us in different directions every minute of the day. We’ve been able to connect with our kids, having them completely to ourselves every day of the trip. They are at a magical age for travel … simple things can be captivating (climbing the tangle of branches of a “ginormous” gum tree in the Botanical Gardens, picking out the perfect little stuffed koala from the tourist shop, body surfing a wave all the way into the beach, excitedly walking into a “new” hotel room and checking out the view from the window, feeling local when ordering “chips with tomaaato sauce”, making sure every single goat is fed equally at the Australia Zoo (Rick: “couldn’t we be doing this at the Guilford Fair?”), engaging in conversation with interesting people and sharing the excitement with their parents for a very special city.
Rick and I have loved retracing every step in Sydney. Can you really go back and relive the memories? Not exactly … things will never be the same. We used to be locals and now we visit as tourists. We gaze from afar at the harbour-front apartment we once had, we miss many of the friends that used to live here and we now have two little people in tow that find the playground at Darling Harbour one of the highlights of the city. But the magic of Sydney is still there … the smell of the frangipani flower, the call of the colorful lorikeet, the sparkling water and beauty of the opera house, the laid-back nature of the Aussie people (although we’re told there’s no more happy-hour at the office on Friday afternoons – shame), the love of the land, the sun and the surf. And we’ve been able to share it all with our children and now they are part of our special Australia experience … and that experience is now enriched by their presence. We can live it together now and hope that one day we may return and continue our Australian story together.
