End of OZ

We stayed on the farm in Esk for 3 days and the boys enjoyed helping 0ut feeding the animals, going on the tractor, the jeep, the motorcross machines - I sunbathed and Ian decided to become a farmer upon return to DK! hmmm, maybe just a few chickens and a pig (He has always secretly wanted to have his own pigfarm).
The days at Esk were bliss for all of us and with our energy levels back on top we ventured back to Brisbane to Helen and Declan and their boys for the rest of the stay. The idea was to do lots of day trips to all the places we had yet to experience in Queensland. I must say some of these were somewhat interrupted by some late night boozy sessions. We all agreed that we were 20 again, this would have been no hindrance to any of us, but as we are now 30 something grownups the flu-like symptoms that followed such nights had us out in turn. However, where better to do this than in a place where the boys can just run around and have lots of fun.
The most memorable night may be the one in which Declan showed Ian around the Brisbane hotspots. Returning home alone without my husband and slightly tipsy (read could not stand, walk, talk) Declan declared that his brother was now looking after Ian in the Valley. I decided that it may be best to wait up for Ian as I wasn't sure he'd even remember the address and sure enough he got the taxi driver to drive to the area they lived in and through some weird drunken survival instinct found his way home - now all that was left for me was to get him to bed - a task not normally an issue I might add- but in this case I took a leaf out of Heino's book having watched him hearding the cows and the goats and finally managed this in 30min, all of this to Helen's giggling fit.
Anyway, the day trips we did included going up Tamborine Mountain where the views were spectacular and we had the most wonderful lunch in a little cafe. We went to Surfers Paradise twice - the long stretch of beach there is amazing. We've toured around Brisbane in the sunshine, took the citycat (water taxi) to the markets and enjoyed a bit of retail therapy.
A bit of bad luck with the weather as we had to be here in the one week in 6 years rains has grazed Australia with it's presence. However, we decided to just enjoy the hospitality of Helen and Declan, which in the end meant we practically believed it was our house and even took over the driveway....just hope we can return the favour one day!!

The boys have found great friends in Flynn and Johrel and the 4 of them have played together all the time. When the two big boys goes to school, Sebastian and Oscar misses them so much and it is hugs and kisses when they return. They've made friends for life and if we can keep it going it would be great to see them as adults travelling to meet eachother around the world!
Oscar inparticular has developed in the last month and we now have two boys who never stops talking.
Anyway, we're going to reunite in a dodgy cable car brothel in Japan, each buy a web-cam so we can share each others weather reports (DK=dark, Brisbane=sunny), and compete on buying the largest 4-wheel drives possible - Ian will lose that one.
We're now heading onto Malaysia and we're sad at leaving Oz and our new friends in Brisbane.