Our trip of a lifetime - Austraila PT.1

We've finally settling back home from our major trip of a lifetime! Yes, we travelled to Australia with two small kids. yikes! I even just shivered at the thoughts of it.

So, since we couldn't say anything before. lets start from the beginning!

The planning all started last October/November when we started to talk about going over to surprise Pietro's sister for her birthday in April. It was all fun to talk about then, as we honestly didn't think it was going to go ahead.
My main though were, "Is travelling with two small kids even possible?" "Can we even do this without spilling everything?" "What am I even meant to pack for Australian weather???"
Of course Pietro was completely for going over, I was a bit hesitate. I didn't want this amazing trip to go down the drain because I was in too over my head!! But we started planning.
Pietro booked time off work once the tickets were book. I rang my Uncle in Melbourne to say he's getting a few visitors in April. which meant, we were about to go on SIX airplanes within two weeks.

We're Nuts!!

Pietro started saving, I started buying clothes to pack. LOL
Then the real test came, Pietro's Sister & her boyfriend came to visit for Christmas. Were we going to blow the whole thing?? Well we kinda did, but thankfully she didn't cop on ;)
Time went very fast, before we knew it, it was a week before we flew and I didn't have anything packed!!!

For the kids, lets just say I overpacked. Oops, nut we were going during Australia's autumn so yes, I brought summer clothes and winter clothes for both. And surprisingly I actually used both :)

I can't really think of how i planned for the long trips and we honestly just winged it with everything!!

We brought three carry-ons swell as a baby carrier (Saved our lives)
So the first carry-on was full of clothes, basically the "What Ifs" and clothes to change into in Abu Dhabi.
The second carry-on was FULL of toys, food, bottles, baby food, formula. Anything I could think of that would help distract the kids on the plane. To be honest we didn't even use half the stuff we planned on using. The Tvs on the plane & the iPad were basically what kayden used on the plane.
The third carry-on was basically empty! But we needed it for going to Melbourne, so we just filled it with randoms :P

It was such a struggle to bring around three carry-ons, hold two kids and keep your insanity LOL! But surprisingly myself and Pietro played Tag Team throughout the trips and there was no arguing, nipping or divorcing ;)

When it came to tips, I asked my fellow bloggers about travelling and they sent me all their blogs on travelling with small babies, and thankfully they did! I was reading arcticles, blogs, stories about travelling just for me to be somewhat prepared, and have an idea of what to expect.
Like, to be honest it was the first big trip to go on without my mammy, and mammys always are prepared ;)

On the 21st of April, we set of at 5am with the car packed, kids loaded and our heads held high. We were about to travel to austraila.
this was either going to go so well, that we would be back or absolutly horrific that we wouldn't be stepping on a plane again.

We arrived at the airport, checked our bags in and ourselves. got our tickets and headed to security. I'd say it took us about twenty minutes to unload everything and recheck if we've unloaded everything, that i'd say there was a queue of 15 people cursing and blinding us to hurry the F on. LOL
But we were first timers, and we just wanted to do everything right ;)

We had about two hours to kill before our flight, so we headed for breakfast to fill our bellies before lift off. in the mean time, Kayden ate nothing due to being so excited. Emilee puked up her porridge and I was too nervous to even look at food. Pietro didn't have a bother on him. F'er

I skipped duty free, etc because i didn't want the extra load to carry even though i could of fitted it in my carry-on. *Slap in the face *

And then it was time to board, i felt like i was repeating myself as every time i met someone on the plane "Are we getting a bassinet?" "Are we getting a bassinet?" and they would always reply "Yes, Please go to your seat!" LOL i felt like my life depended on that bassinet, how was i going to hold her in my arms for 24hours, will i sleep? will she sleep? my life did depend on that bassinet. and dam right we got it :D! It was the best thing invented. she slept like a log during the flights over. and so did kayden! So thankfully we slept great too. I'd say we watched one movie during the two flights, i think it was "How to be single" but we were so occupied with the kids i didn't even notice that we had tvs haha!

So 7 hours past, and we were about to land in Abu Dhabi. and guess what? Emilee had the biggest poop explosion that we couldn't even get up to change it because we were just about to land, so we rushed off the plane into the bathrooms, and then.... i couldn't find any nappies. Oh my god, how could we not have any flipping nappies?!?!?! but yes, i was stupid enough to move then into another case, and cause so much stress on me that i wanted to turn around and go home. After that horrible 5 minutes i found the nappies, we changed Emilee and i went to grab everything to pack and go, but Pietro decided to open the door a bit to early and this woman barged in demanding us to get out because she wanted to change her baby's nappy. ahhhh! it was stressful. So we spent another 30 minutes trying to figure where we were to go as we lost the crowd, but thankfully we made it within 30 minutes before boarding. So i had a quick Skype with my sister and off we went on the last leg to Austraila.

Well, our flight couldn't of went any better. the kids slept 7 hours out of the 11 and we slept a little less but we got to watch a movie!!!!! wooooooo!!!

We arrived at 2pm Australian time, Pietro's Sister's friend came to pick us up and bring us into their house. it was about a 15 minute drive but so surreal to be there. it was amazing. the heat omg. 28degrees. and all of us in trackies and hoodies from flying!  LOL

We waited in the house for about twenty minutes before they arrived, we stood in the kitchen as they walked in and shouted SURPRISE, She was so surprised that she didn't even see us, just seen her friend and then realised that we were standing there! it was great, so worth the flying and hassle!

Who said you can't travel the world when you have kids? Just bring them along! ;)
Thanks for reading!
Aisling xo