Winter holidays

For winter holidays we decided on driving the family up to Queensland. Due to school holidays not being in sync between states we decided to drive up a week before NSW schools broke up so that the kids could catch up with their cousins who were in the last week of their QLD holidays. While it was warmer than home, the weather was pretty terrible with most of the two weeks being rain or overcast (photo captures a brief glipse of the sunshine and a pretty rainbow from our hotel balcony). That being said it was great to see my sisters and some of my friends and while we had to come home a bit early due to my wife catching COVID, we all had heaps of fun.

Catching up with family and friends was awesome, so rarely have the opportunity to just hang out and chat. We also booked in a heap of activities. Some of the highlights for me were:

• Mini golf and Hijinx Hotel
• Jetboating on the Gold coast
• Movie World
• In the brief window before a storm hit, we managed to get in a quick swim in the surprisingly warm ocean on the Gold Coast
• Catching the RiverCat and heading into Brisbane to see a Lego Dinosaur Exhibition
• We also managed to fit in a few trips to the movies

We also went for a few walks along the way and a visited a number of parks and playgrounds. We also made a day trip to Ikea (we don't have one anywhere near us at home) - I don't think the kids were overjoyed at walking around the store for part of the day but they definetly slept well once we got home!
The kids were mostly content to stay on their ipads and my wife was not her usual talkative self on the trip home so I also got in a fair few audiobook hours! I recently got into The Helldivers series by Nicholas Sansbury Smith. I originally thought it was connected to the video game (Helldivers2) which was released earlier this year but apparently there is no connection which surprised me.

I really enjoyed driving through the countryside so while it was a big couple of days driving each way (in the rain), I think it was a great holiday, lots of great memories and I'm very glad we took the opportunity.