Our first goodbye was early in the morning, when Jack and Lexie went off to school. Naturally I cried, which nearly set Marni off, but we remained strong. It has been an absolute joy spending time with Jack and Lexie, and hopefully it won't be too long before we see them both again. FaceTime is an amazing thing, so we will use that regularly!!
A bit of last minute packing, thank goodness we had that extra suitcase, otherwise Marni may have been leaving quite a bit at home, a few last minute family photos, and we were piling into the cars heading towards Manchester, an hours drive from Penkridge. A slight incident with a truck nearly side swiping us on the M6, but excellent driving by Katie had us arriving safely at the airport.
We checked our luggage in, no slug $$ for extra kilos, so we were lucky, or should I say Marni was lucky, and then a quick bite to eat with Gary & Katie. It almost felt like we were putting off the inevitable, but the time had come to say goodbye. Lots of hugs, many tears, and through we went to departures.
Trying to gain composure, we were piling our hand luggage onto the scanning belt, the lady was such a grumpy cow, did she not realise we were emotional wrecks?! Then through the body scanners we went. Of course, Kyle beeped, and yet another frisk search was done! This was his fourth frisk, and the rest of us had had none! I'm sure all of a England thought we were using Kyle as a drug mule!! Anyway, thinking we were all good, we were grabbing our hand luggage and putting our jewellery and belts back on, and sure enough Kyles bag needed to be searched, something hiding right at the very bottom, what could it be I was racking my brain, sure enough it was a glue stick... What??!! So back through the machine it went, and again, something else in the bag. By this stage I was regretting that I had forgotten to check Kyles hand luggage!! This time it was a can of deodorant, hopefully third time lucky, as we were now starting to run late for boarding our plane!! Luckily the bag went through, and off we raced! All those goodbye emotions were lost, as stress started to take over!!
Fortunately the plane was a little late boarding, and we made it in plenty of time. We flew out at 2.05pm Thursday 16th May, on the Airbus A380, what a magnificent plane, so much room, and the seats were amazingly comfortable, and the in house entertainment brilliant, so we were all comfortable and happy for the next 7 hours. None of us slept, all watched movies, and we arrived in Dubai at 12.10am.
Our stopover in Dubai was not so stressful, we made it through baggage control with no issues, and remarkably Kyle made it through without needing to be frisked! We were able to spend a couple of hours in the Dubai airport, which is a beautiful place, we grabbed a bite to eat, and before long it was time to board again, ready for our 11 hour flight back to Perth. This time we were riding in a Boeing 777, very squishy compared to the A380, but we were all exhausted, so we all slep at various times and for different lengths. Ashleigh & Grant slept the least, but Marni, Nathan and I easily slept for 6 hours, Kyle slept for 9 hours!!
Finally at 5.39pm Friday 16th May we arrived safely in Perth, made it through the Electronic Gates (what a brilliant idea), with no problems, had our cards stamped for border control, collected our bags and we were through arrivals within an hour of getting off the plane, to be greeted by Mum, Dad and Chloe Rose!! It was lovely seeing them all there, into the "party bus" we piled, and back to the Windsor, to refresh, before we caught up with Kev, Marilyn, Jess, Wrighty and Jack, for dinner at the Karalee Tavern.
All exhausted we were in bed by 10.30pm! What a hectic and emotional 24 hours we had just had.
It's a shame that all good things must come to an end, but how lucky are we, as a family to have experienced a holiday of a lifetime together. We truly are very lucky to have each other, and these memories we will hold in our hearts forever.
For now though, this is not good bye, it is seeya later!!
Lots of Love,
Chrissie xx
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