Hiatus

9 May through to 5 November

hiatus

/hʌɪˈeɪtəs/

noun

1. a pause or break in continuity in a sequence or activity.

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On returning to Sydney, we were fortunate in being able to stay with my brother and sister-in-law in Willoughby. Of course, catching up with family and friends was great, but we were back to eagerly await the arrival of our new grandchild.

We DO know just how fortunate we are to be welcome to stay with family, but rather than be under their feet for four or five months, we were able to secure a couple of house sits.

We looked after an Airbnb and Persian cat for three months at Wahroonga. We stayed in a beautiful home with gorgous gardens full of camelias and magnolias, and had the unique opportunity to turn over the attached Airbnb a few times each week for the owners, who generously compensated us for the trouble. Met some lovely people and enjoyed walking around the beautiful trees in Wahroonga. It also served as a different base to explore other parts of Sydney we don't usually go to, like Dangar Island and urban areas just north of Hornsby.

While at Wahroonga, our first grandchild, Patrick, arrived.  He is beautiful! And well worth the travel hiatus we enjoyed. Wahroonga is not far from North Parramatta so we were able to have some lovely catch-ups with family.

When that three months finished we secured another house sit with Billy, a gorgeous groodle, at Chatswood. Looking after Billy for five weeks was a delight - lots of walks around the trees and forest (yes forest, in Chatswood! We even saw an echidna one day in the forest). Plenty of hills, so good exercise!

We had a great five weeks there before moving back in to Willoughby for a few weeks prior to travelling to Europe. 

We spent our final weekend near Taree at Old Bar, catching up with our daughter, Emily. We'll see her just before Christmas when she joins us in Ljubjana.

Which brings us to now... here, at the airport, ready to embark on our next experience while our house in Balmain continues to fund our experiences.

We're going to spend a few months in Europe. Slow travel, staying in only a handful of towns and smaller cities for two or three weeks at a time, doing most of our site seeing travel by train.

Flying in to Zurich, we'll travel north into the Black Forest region and post next from Gengenbach.