oh darling.

On 9 January 2009 my feet touched ground in Australia for the very first time.  After a shuttle ride from the airport, my friend Jenna and I checked in to our hostel, dropped our backpacks and immediately started talking to the people in our room about what we should see and do first.  The first question that was always asked in those first few days was, “So how long have you been in Australia?”  It was almost like being back in middle school when people would ask you how old you were- embarrassed to say 13 when you so wished you were 15 already.  I distinctly remember meeting someone within our first few minutes at the hostel who had been travelling in Australia for over 7 months.  Reflecting back on the 5 hours since our arrival, I just couldn’t even imagine what it would feel like when I was able to say I had been here in Oz for months!

3 years, 7 months and 22 days later my husband and baby-to-be arrived back at that very same hostel for a weekend tour of Sydney.  Call it whatever you want; an anniversary trip, a baby moon, whatever… to me this was a trip back in time and I was excited to give Max a tour of my very first experience of Australia.  And of course, we thought it only fitting that we stay in the same hostel where it all began.  Call us cheap, but we had our own room/bathroom- and minus the “strip pillow fighting” party held at the pub directly below our room and the flat pillows on our bed, I really can’t complain about our decision to stay at Base Sydney :) Judge away friends… judge away!

We spent our first afternoon casually walking around Darling Harbour taking in the sights.










We paid way to much for a harbour-side lunch and enjoyed the sunshine and cooler Sydney weather.



Always on the phone that husband of mine....






After a quick late afternoon nap, we got ready and met up with Max's brother Scott and his partner Andrew for dinner at Forresters in Surry Hills. We hadn't seen them since our trip to Perth so it was great to catch up with them in their home town.  Infact, we got to catch up with them three times!!



Last year we decided that we would take turns planning our anniversary celebration each year. For our first anniversary Max planned an awesome weekend in Montville and this year I planned a trip to Sydney. Although Max has been to Sydney several times before, he has never been there as a tourist or seen the typical Sydney attractions. It was really fun for ME to show Max around a new place in Australia for once and I had a whole day of traditional sightseeing planned for day two of our weekend!