Family vacation to Sydney, Australia

Our family vacation to Australia for Christmas 2008 was fantastic, of course. But before I get into the details, I must say that it honestly felt like the honeymoon we were meant to have. (Don't get me wrong, our honeymoon in the Hamptons, Long Island was great.) As the plane took off from JFK and we held hands and gazed into each others eyes, it truly felt like the beginning of an exciting honeymoon trip. Mind you, our little Liam was sitting on my lap, but he was perfectly still and it was really a special moment for us nonetheless. After all the hustle and bustle in preparing for the trip (by myself because my darling husband was working extremely late!) I was finally able to take a deep breath and exhale.

The plane ride, which was what I was more nervous about, was uneventful. Liam slept a little, watched a little bit of TV (all of 30 seconds), snacked and played with his special "no mess" magic markers. He quickly found friends wherever we went, be it on the airplane or waiting at the airport. His ears did bother him a little when we landed in Sydney, but it wasn't too bad.

I thought meeting my in-laws would be nerve-wracking. Finally meeting my parents-in-law was the opposite: a joyous moment. They had a balloon for Liam that read "Welcome to Australia". I can say that my husband is a nice mix of both his parents. And they were simply enchanted with Liam. Grandma Bette played the piano every day for Liam, mostly his favorite Sesame Street songs, and Grandpa Bill played Liam's all-time favorite: the Alphabet Song (a.k.a. Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star). Everyone just fell in love with our son. What's not to like, anyway? ; ) We are so very grateful for Grandpa Bill and Grandma Bette's warm welcome, hospitality and their generosity. God bless them! All their friends there, as well as Bill's drumming friend Gordon and his lovely family, are all incredible people who seemed to "roll out the red carpet" for us. Thank you all!

As for the sites and sounds of Sydney, Australia, it was everything I imagined and more. I can honestly say that I now know why people want to move there. Overall, it's just cleaner, the people seem to be friendlier and more respectful of each other and their surroundings, and the weather is ideal. There isn't the "commercialism" and the fierce competition that you would normally find here in the U.S. People there seem to be somewhat content with what they own without the urgent need to overload their credit cards to constantly be upgrading this, that or the other. In some ways, you miss the variety that is offered here, but for the most part, you just don't consider it that important so you don't really miss it. Most shops, for example, close for holidays since they relish the time off to spend with their family and friends. England and Wales where I served my mission were like that, too.

The beaches are beautiful, super clean, and unlike the beaches here -they are free! We went to Bondi Beach, one of the beautiful local beaches there. We lunched on fish and chips and washed it down with a fruit smoothie each. Liam had is very own smoothie and downed the whole thing before we were finished with ours. Further up the coast I was assured that there were other beaches even more beautiful than Bondi Beach, which I think is hard to believe.

The weather while we were there was Spring/Summer-like, with only a couple of days with super hot beach weather, one was spent at Bondi Beach and the other at Taronga Zoo. This zoo was amazing! We got to see the kangaroos and koalas, of course, and much more -all with the Sydney Harbor as a backdrop. Just beautiful!

We went to the Sydney Aquarium at the appropriately named Darling Harbor. If I had to describe the aquarium in one word, it would be: spectacular. The aquarium's main theme seemed to be patterned after the Disney computer animated movie "Finding Nemo". We couldn't resist and bought a small plush clown fish for Liam upon exiting the aquarium at the souvenir shop. To exit the aquarium you had no other choice but to walk through the gift shop. (The same as with the duty-free shop at the airport; you take a turn and before you know it, you're right smack in front of it with no alternate route.) I must say though that both the admission costs to the zoo and the aquarium were well worth the money as we saw amazing wild and marine life that is native to Australia.

The tour of the historical Sydney Opera House felt over-priced at first, but after seeing it in photos all my life I really wanted to see the inside for myself. It is truly majestic and definitely one my favorite landmarks of all time. The detailed tour is definitely worth the price of admission.

We walked through the gorgeous Royal Botanical Gardens which is located between the Sydney Opera House and the Conservatorium where Bill's parents both teach and where Bill Sr. still conducts. He gave us an exclusive tour of the "Con", as they call it. We even had a private "performance" by our little Liam at the drums. Bill Sr had us take a peek at one of the huge rooms where all the drumming equipment is stored and Liam just ran in there and started banging on the drums, with his father of course. I made sure I got that bit on tape.

Oh, and I don't want to forget to tell you that Bill and I saw "Australia" in Australia. Yes, the movie with Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. Really nice, but looooong. A funny moment in the theater was a poster we saw with a couple that kind of looked like Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman that read: "Tasmania" -They came for the weekend and ended up taking Monday off. If you like "Australia" then you must see "Tasmania". We totally thought it was one of those obnoxious "spoofs" like they do for the scary movies. It turns out it was a tourist promo.

Let's see, what else..... We drove by the Olympic venues, but decided not to do another expensive tour as I'm sure it looks like how we saw it on TV. We spent a really nice afternoon at the beautiful Centennial Park one day. We went window shopping along Oxford Street. And we took in the Paddington Market on a couple of Saturday mornings as it was just a couple of blocks away from Bill's parent's house. We also went to the Powerhouse Museum for the special Star Wars exhibit. Before the exhibit, we lunched on meat pies, Solo, and lamington for dessert. Yummy! My husband is a Star Wars fanatic of the original movie (now known as Star Wars IV: A New Hope).

When you see or talk to my husband, have him spell Woolloomooloo (the name of a town in Sydney) for you. It's hilarious to hear him spell it so fast. "W-double O-double L-double O-M-double O-L-double O" Honestly, you try to spell it really fast without looking at the word.

As for the sounds, we saw a street performer at Circular Quay on our way to the Sydney Opera House that was an Indigenous Australian man (more commonly known as Aborigines) and he was playing the didgeridoo. What an amazing sound! It was at times combined with trance/techno music for a truly unique effect. What I loved the most was waking up to the incredible bird sounds and calls early in the morning and those of the late afternoon. The bird sound that is most prevalent comes from the magpie, loud and obnoxious, but in a really funny way. ah, ah, Ah, AH- AAAaaww! So funny. And then there's the Kookaburra that sounds like laughter. We even saw bats one evening coming home. Yes, bats! I was told they are tree bats and not "the kind that live in caves". Though my question always was, where are they during the day? Needless to say, seeing the bats were creepingly fascinating to me.

As I'm writing this report, I can't help but pause for a moment and deeply sigh. I actually miss Australia. I can't wait for our next visit. Would I recommend Australia despite the 20-hour travel time from NYC? Definitely. Would I live there? I just don't know. Definitely maybe. ; )