This is the end of a very emotional week. So many things have happened. So many tears have been shed. All happy tears I must add.
It was the kids last week in school. We went in to school early so Gareth could have one last day of swapping Pokemon cards...
Rhiannon could have one more morning of being silly...
and Sian could have one more morning of signing friends sports shirts and getting hers signed by her classmates too...
For Sian this meant that it was the end of her time in Primary school and she said goodbye to the school that has shaped and moulded her since we arrived off the plane from the UK 4 years ago. She has had some fantastic teachers in St Joseph's and they have prepared her well for her journey through High School that will begin next month.
The school organised a leaving Mass on Tuesday evening which was a lovely way to mark the end of their Primary years. They got to dress up "posh" and all the girls looked so lovely and grown up in their dresses.
On Wednesday, the last day, all the children in the school lined the playground forming a guard of honour for the year 6 students to walk through. It brought a big lump to my throat and tears to my eyes.
That evening my sister-in-law gave birth to a healthy, gorgeous baby boy that they called Tadhg. His name is a very old Irish name that means storyteller. It looks strange written down but is pronounced like tiger without the "r" at the end.
My sister was travelling the long journey from Dublin to Sydney and landed on Saturday night. On our way to the airport we were planning to call in to the hospital to see baby Tadhg. We found ourselves arriving in Sydney an hour earlier than visiting started so we stopped by my brothers house to see Tadhg's big brother Cian (3) who was being looked after by his Grandma Anne. It was an unplanned visit and we rang ahead to check it was ok for us to drop in. When Anne put down the phone she picked Cian up and told him his cousins were coming to visit. She said his face lit up and he asked "Can we dance Grandma?" and then ran around in circles laughing and squealing with excitement.
We had so much fun with Cian for the half hour we stopped in. We gave him a toy soft dog which we voted to call Patch. We shared a box of Smarties out with Cian giving away almost all of his to everyone else!
Then we dashed to the hospital to ooh and aggh over a tiny sleeping Tadhg. He looked so lovely but we didn't want to pick him up and disturb his sleep.
After hugs all around we jumped back in the car to Sydney International airport and waited anxiously for Carrie to appear in the line of people filing through the arrival gates. Would we recognise her? What would she be wearing? Would she be exhausted? Excited? Byron spotted her first and the kids ran to give her a huge hug. She didn't look at all diiferent from her last visit 3 years ago!
We doubled back to the hospital and sweet talked the night porter into letting Carrie and myself sneak in for Carrie to say a quick hello to Tadhg. He wasn't sleeping anymore. We followed the wailing down the corridor and got to see him wide awake and refusing to settle to sleep. We each got a cuddle and a chance to rock and soothe him and loved every second.
We didn't stay long and ran back down to the car to start the 2 hour drive from Sydney back to our home. We talked all the way trying to keep Carrie awake and then sat up chatting until after midnight.
Today we are vegging in the house, the kids are swimming in the pool under the watchful eye of Byron and Aunty Carrie and I am off down to the local bottle shop to buy in some refreshments for this evening! I think we need a bottle of something cold and bubbly to toast all the big events of this huge week, or maybe a box of bottles like this image I found on-line... hmmmm, yes, that will do nicely!
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