NSW Trip Day 16: Newcastle -> Sydney

Packing to leave without a deadline was nice, I was able to take my time, and help clean up from the night before, play with the kids a bit, chat to P & K in between getting ready. Tony and P took the kids down the end of the street to the lake to go fishing – first time fishing for our kids – Caitlin caught a shellfish of some sort, LiAM enjoyed the fishing although was sad that he didn’t catch anything – and was reassured when I said it still counted as going fishing even if you didn’t catch anything.

We had left over BBQ food on sandwiches for lunch, and baby E joined us down in the back yard for a while (she is on oxygen so usually needs to be upstairs where her tube can reach the oxygen converter). By about 2pm we were packed and ready to go – sad to leave family and excited to be heading off on the next bit of our adventure.

It only took about 90 minutes to reach our caravan park in Dural. We unpacked the car and had a quick play on the playground, then back in the car to go and see some more friends. P and S have a 5 year old boy and a 3 year old girl and all 5 kids had a great evening, playing on each other’s iPads, dressing up in jewellery and dressing up clothes, having sword fights, doing puzzles, watching Barbie movies, making loom bands and playing hide and seek. Tony and I had a very restful evening catching up with our friends. S had cooked a cake for dessert, and she put candles on it for Millie and we sang Happy Birthday again, and she even had a present (stickers and puzzles) for Millie – Millie didn’t really want to be away from home for her birthday so these extended celebrations are making it more fun than she thought it might be! S also took a photo of the 5 of us with the cake - the first full family photo we've had this trip.

We decided to drive home via the city so we could at least get a glimpse of the lights of the Vivid festival – and Millie really wanted to drive over the Sydney Harbour Bridge. We saw several buildings lit up, including the Opera House which looked spectacular, and the Bridge itself looked great as we approached it – I still find it exciting to drive over it too. We spent about 10 minutes trying to find the entrance to a shopping centre on the way home so we could get milk and some other emergency supplies – when we finally got to the supermarket it was closed, so we popped in to a 7-11 to get some milk and then finally back to our cabin to crash.