The Brave Travellers

Having organised a holiday in Jindabyne to show the kids what snow looked like we approached the approximately 6 hour car trip with much trepidation. Our friends Deb and John with their boys Sam and Tom accompanied us down to Bergen Lodge where Sarah's family are members. I don't think we would have contemplated going by ourselves.

The trip was planned around stopping at McDonalds with play places so the kids could use up some energy and get happy with happy meals. For your information, there is one such McDonalds at Sutton Forest and another at Queanbeyan and then a great park at Cooma. We also swapped kids to avoid the not infrequent bickering between siblings Simon and Ben. This plan exceeded our expectations with all children behaving unnaturally well for the other children's parents. Then we still had Ella to contend with. She was dealt with using a tip from another friend Penny who recommmended taking one of those magnetised drawing toys where you can keep drawing and clearing the picture. Ella loved this, along with lots of unhealthy snacks along the way.

Once we finally made it to the destination there was great excitement from the boys to see they were sleeping on bunk beds. For once we were being asked " Can we go to bed now please?" Of course they didn't go to sleep till much later. They also enjoyed playing hide and seek in the empty lodge which has lots of rooms.

We had two day trips into Thredbo. On the first day the weather wasn't good enough to go up the chairlift to see the snow so we went swimming in the pool (also recommended to me). The heated pool felt like there was snow in it but it turned out to be a "training pool". Remember for next time training pool means COLD. Anyway the kids didn't notice. They loved it. Following the swim we all had hot chips for lunch at the pub. This was later identified as the highlight of the holiday for Sam.

On the second day in Thredbo we managed to make it safely to the top of Crackenback chairlift although there were some hairy moments where Ella decided she didn't want to be held and wanted to sit by herself on the chairlift and Ben kept wanting to lean forward! We found a patch of snow not too far from the top of the chairlift --- necessary as the little ones were too lazy to walk very far. There John made us a little toboggan track and we slid down it on the cardboard poster of Joe Hockey Deb had kindly brought along. We also made a little snowman and good time was had by all. However, this was not enough excitement for some and once down the mountain the boys all had a turn on the bobsled ride. Tom and Sam being more experienced had two rides each. On the way home all 3 Harris children slept and Sarah and Michael had a well deserved rest that afternoon.







The next day bike riding was planned for all but the weather prevented this and we ended up playing at the park and making an early exit home. The trip home was pretty good as well except for the last hour and a half where we got our own children back and they pretty much went back to bickering again. Oh well as they say it gets easier all the time......