The 6 weeks the kids spent in South Africa just flew by. Yes, I put my kids on a plane, all alone, and sent them to the other side of the world for six weeks. The were perfectly happy to go and not so happy to be back at home. Cept for the food, turns out they prefer my cooking to their Nana's (luckily she doesn't read my blog so I don't have to be worried about her finding out).
We arranged for them to keep up with their training while there. A friend of ours is an ex Commonwealth swimmer for South Africa so she was the perfect coach for Cat. And as luck would have it her boyfriend is a professional soccer coach so that was Tiger sorted. And it all paid off cause getting back into training here at home has been seamless.
Himself & I really missed having the kids around. The first couple of days it feels like you are on honeymoon, only having to think about yourselves but then you start to miss the little buggers. Not that they cared, getting them to talk to us on Skype for more than 5 minutes wasn't easy to do.
The great thing about them being is South Africa is that they got the chance to hang out with some of their cousins (they also have cousins in Australia but so far we've only manged to talk to them on Skype). Their aunties and uncles and their last remaining great-grandmother.
As happy as I am about living here in Belgium, the one thing I am sorry about is the fact that they are growing up without their family around them. Some of my best memories are linked to my cousins.
Anyway, I thought I would add a couple of photos to show you they really were happy to be away from home for 6 weeks.
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| cousins going bowling |
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| someone was kind and skilled enough to replace Mr. Brown's eye |
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| The boys at the dino expo |
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| Monopoly |
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| Playing in my brother's garden |
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| Hanging with Nanna B on her 83rd birthday |
Bowling and dinosaurs and cousins?! Yeah, that sounds like a pretty good summer. No wonder they didn't want to come home. Was it an adjustment having them back?
ReplyDeleteSo neat to be able to have family to visit in South Africa...what an adventure it must have been. Don't worry, they might not be around their cousins all the time, but they are still making great memories with them because of trips like this! :) Hope the transition to having them back home is going smoothly.
ReplyDeleteAww, what an awesome experience for them! It's so great that they got to spend time with family and train over the summer. Have they already started school this year?
ReplyDeleteThey are lucky to get to have such awesome adventures, so it's awesome they can get the chance to do that and be with family!! Isn't it funny how we can't wait for them to get away and then we miss them so? You can't win!
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