Goodbye visitors, Hello visitors.....

Yesterday afternoon my parents flew out of Sydney Airport to return to Ireland after their visit to us. The following hours were a blur of stripping beds, washing, drying and re-making the guest room up, hoovering, cleaning, shopping and finally at almost midnight, mopping all the tiles before falling into bed. At 5am the bedside alarm woke me out of a dead sleep and within 30mins three very tired kids had been lifted from their sleep and dressed and sat in the car for another early airport run, this time to collect a family of four from Scotland who were arriving on a 6.50am flight....

Our visitors are Gareth (Byron's friend since Pre-School!) his wife Lesley and their two kids Cerys (7) and Evan (3) Despite our early start and a good clear run of traffic we managed to arrive a few minutes after they did. They had managed to collect their suitcases, change a nappy and clear customs in record time! They looked relieved when they saw us run in. I think it would be your worst nightmare getting off a 24 hour flight to find no-one to meet you at arrivals- oops!

Once we had got a coffee into us we went off to the carpark and I drove our car home with Lesley in the passenger seat and Byron drove Gareth's hire car. It is "Double Demerits" this long holiday weekend. Effectively that means that any driving offence such as speeding will gain you double the normal points punishment and you could loose your license in just two offences. Having nagged Byron all the way to Sydney I kept my speed averaging about 90-100 km per hr on the way back, well under the 110 limit. At one point I saw the speedometer creep up to 115 and I eased off gently only noticing the cop car in the layby with his laser pointing at me after I passed him...... AAAARRRGGGHHHH! If I get done for that I will feel so hard done by!

The rest of the journey went by easily enough and we were glad to get home and get the kettle on. Gareth and Lesley did a great job keeping themselves and the kids awake in order to try and get a full nights sleep to break the jet lag. As the eyelids got heavy in the afternoon we went out to get fresh air and everyone perked up again. Everyone that is except poor little Evan. Despite having a birds eye view on his dads shoulders he just couldn't stick it anymore and was soon fast asleep and dribbling onto Gareth's head!

They have all gone off to bed early and we are hoping that they will get a full nights sleep ready to get up bright and breezy tomorrow to begin their holiday!