Australia - Back Home

27th January 2008

A welcoming committee of family and food in the fridge from generous friends made the homecoming much easier despite no sleep on the flight - too busy watching movies. Aside from the car breaking down on the way home, and the overwhelming quantity of bags to unpack (made worse by all the extra bags we had to collect from friends and family who had looked after the boys before we left), it was certainly nice to be back to the comforts of home and even more importantly, back among friends and family.

We had an incredibly hectic first month back with multiple family birthday celebrations, many catch-ups with friends and straight back into the school year. Our little niece who was only a couple of days old when we left enjoyed investigating the new growth on Rob's chin - he looks quite different - I like it, some don't!

Life is so much more complicated and hectic that I feel constantly tired. Start to wonder what's wrong with me, but think that it is simply the pace we set ourselves and the amount of "stuff" we own that needs to be constantly accessed, searched for, put away, cleaned, sorted, dusted, cleaned, and moved from place to place. And then the information overload of mail, bills, e-mail, magazines that need to be dealt with in a timely fashion or the world will come to an end....

Rob and I set to with a vengeance to de-clutter and simplify and spent the first couple of weeks pulling every item out of the kitchen and bathroom cupboards, scrubbing all surfaces to within an inch of their lives and trying to determine what we could give away, sell, or discard. Have to say that although it took a lot of work (amazing how much stuff is in a kitchen!), it has been great being able to easily see and access all our things, and is certainly a great incentive to keep up the process throughout the house. Energy is waning though, and everyday life is taking over again.

People have asked about the highlights of the trip. It is a tough question to answer, as every country had its highlights and some of the tougher times become the most memorable. All in all, it was so worthwhile, and I think will be something we will always remember. I actually miss Rob now that he is back at work, and I think that consolidating our own relationship with each other was an added bonus that we hadn't really thought about - it had been more about giving the kids a family experience to remember. And it is the intangibles that really count - the fact that our kids are willing to try new foods and new experiences, and that they are so capable of putting up with difficult situations. James left for China with school a few days ago, and I am absolutely certain that his past experiences of travelling will help him to make the most of this trip. So these are the bits that are priceless, and mean so much more to us than having a big house and the latest plasma TV.

My Aunt said it all with a card with a picture of a kid in a cardboard box aeroplane and a caption that said - Give them roots and wings to fly.

Well Gatt kids, I hope that you feel that you have both!