Easter in Australia is a bigger holiday than
Christmas. The entire city shuts down
for Good Friday and the Monday following Easter Sunday is a public
holiday. The city was crazy busy on
Thursday with everyone trying to get groceries and run errands before heading
out of town for the long weekend. Some
friends invited us to Palm Beach (about 45 minutes away) for Friday. We headed there about 10AM and returned later
that evening around 10PM. We enjoyed a
full day at the beach. The kids built
sand castles and Paige took a nap on the beach.
It took me awhile to enjoy the beautiful afternoon because the surf was
so strong. The waves were huge and I was
nervous with the kids even getting close to the water. It is a very different beach compared to the
one by our house. Fortunately, the kids stayed back most of the time and there
was a salt water pool nearby with overflow beach water. The kids were able to put their floaties on
and swim around. Matt enjoyed a 2-hour surf lesson from a surf instructor from
Manly. It was fun to watch a 6’4” dude
try to surf, but I think he did pretty well for his first time. After the beach, we lounged around and had awesome Aussie style dinner with our friends before heading back. It was hard not enjoy a glass of wine with dinner, but Australia has a zero tolerance drinking and driving policy and is known for its
random checks. We encountered our first
one on the way home that evening. You will even hear about them on a random
Tuesday mornings across the city.
The Easter bunny came on Saturday before Matt headed back
to Kansas City for another set of meetings.
To be honest, it was a tough weekend for me to have our family apart on
Easter and to be so far away from our extended family. The kids and I had fun at the zoo and
we went to Balmoral Beach for lots of play time and a picnic of fish and chips
from the local famous spot, Bottom of the Harbour. For a city so focused on healthy eating, they
have the biggest chocolate eggs here that all of the kids go nuts over around
Easter time. They are everywhere. Matt
was gone for about a week. He landed on
Saturday morning at 7:00- just in time for Cade’s first soccer game.
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