Sunday 1st April - Wednesday 4th April 2012 - Melbourne

We didn't have the best sleep overnight in the ocean recliners, however I must have fallen asleep heavily around 4am. The next thing I knew there was an announcement at 5.15am waking us up and telling us that we had arrived in Sydney and that we could catch the Manly Ferry at Circular Quay etc on departure from the boat. To say I was confused was an understatement. Ed said that they had made a mistake. We woke the kids up and got down to the car around 5.45am only to realise that it was the 1st April (? April Fools). Anyway, it got worse when we hadn't moved off the boat an hour later. There was a problem with the car ramp so upstairs we went for breakie and a kids movie to pass the time. Our departure time off the boat was delayed for 4 hours and we finally left the boat at 10am! We then got caught in road closures for a fun run and it took us over an hour to get to North Fitzroy. Unfortunately the delays meant that we missed an opportunity to miss our nephews footy match and he was Captain for the day. Sorry Luca.
Gabs and Simon had organised a BBQ that evening for us to catchup with cousins and friends in Melbourne. It was great to my cousins Anth and Jess, Celine, Luke, Emma and their all kids as well as Simons brother Peter and his wife Victoria and their 3 little girls including 3 month old twins, Toni and Grant and their 2 girls and my friend Nikki with her daughter Poppy and her 3 month old little man Jonty.

Nikki with Poppy and Jonty

Monday 2nd April

It was a big day - Thomas' 5th Birthday! He was very excited to be 5 (he had been counting down the days  with the help of the girls) He got some new dinosaurs, a Spiderman shirt, some Dinosaur Snap cards and the book 'Ruby Roars'. His Grandparents gave him some money (which he is yet to spend) and he got some Lego from his cousins. What a lucky boy! We went to the Melbourne Zoo for the morning and despite the tiredness managed to enjoy the morning there followed by a chill out afternoon back in North Fitzroy.

Thomas at the Zoo

Taking photo's with 6 kids - extremely hard!

Chocolate Cake for our big 5 year old boy.

Tuesday around lunchtime we took all the kids into see some comedy festival kids shows in at Federation Square which they all enjoyed. That night Ed and I, Gabs and Simon and my cousin Luke went out to see Dave O'Neil at the Comedy Festival. He is a funny man and we enjoyed his show. As luck would have it Luke's kids are good babysitting age so it worked out well. We got a reasonably early night so we could leave first thing in the morning.