Term 3 School Holidays

It's the end of our two-week school holidays, and it’s been a pretty low-key break at home, our first one on the Gold Coast without visitors. It’s been a really great break that we all needed after a very full on Term 3. Now that we live here, I don’t really feel the need to go anywhere on holiday. Since this used to be our holiday destination, it still feels a bit novel to be living here, like we’ve gone on vacation without leaving home. The weather has been amazing: consistently warm and sunny, quite the opposite of Melbourne at this time of year where every day the weather would be completely different. It’s felt like summer already, with blue skies and temperatures between 25 and 30 degrees almost every day. Pretty perfect.

Most days have been pretty slow: pottering around the house, ticking off a few jobs, reading, exercising, and spending time in the pool and backyard. It’s such a nice feeling to be content just being at home. When we were renting in Melbourne, I never quite felt that way - there was always this urge to get away during the holidays. Owning our own place here has changed that completely.

Ella and Ollie love playing on the airtrack in the water, and Ella worked on her various tumbling tricks into the pool:

We hosted quite a few playdates over the two weeks, mostly with Ella’s friends. These tend to be easy: hours spent in the pool, with breaks only for snacks and drinks. Ollie also had a few playdates here, his first since we moved. Because his school (and Andy’s work) is about 20 kilometres away, most of his classmates live closer to that area, but we did find one who lives just an eight-minute walk from us. For another good friend, we’ve just accepted that a half-hour drive for a playdate is part of life for now.

One of Ella’s friends invited her to the Marriott, where their family was having a little staycation. The hotel has a lagoon-style saltwater pool with tropical fish you can swim with, so she had a brilliant day there. I was invited to join the parents in the cabana, which made it fun for me too.

We also went to another friend's house, who lives in a building that has a pool with this spectacular view over the Broadwater:

We had a few beach days over the break. One was down at Kirra with Mel and her kids, where we spotted whales in the distance and met a man cycling around with his pet parrot perched on his shoulder. 

Another morning, I took the kids to Broadbeach for an early play. It’s their favourite spot for riding their bodyboards down the sand dunes. We saw whales again, they’re migrating south at the moment, and while they’re quite far offshore, you still catch glimpses of tail slaps and distant breaches. It never gets old!

I also joined a new gym, discovered by chance one Saturday night when I took the kids to Jumps, a trampoline park that runs a weekend special: two and a half hours for $24 (a bargain when an hour usually costs the same). Both kids managed the full session and now want to do tumbling lessons next term. The gym next door had just been renovated, and their sign advertising hot yoga, pilates, sauna, and cold therapy caught my attention. I went back later in the week, did a three-day trial, and was instantly hooked after a hot yoga class, a workout, and a sauna/cold plunge session. Their no-lock-in membership was $29.95 a week with unlimited access, which is a great deal considering a single yoga class costs about $25 these days. I’ve been going regularly over the holidays, I even made it to a 6am hot yoga class! It’s been years since I’ve been part of a yoga studio, and I’m really enjoying the challenge again.

We also fit in a few short visits to Movie World and Wet’n’Wild. Andy and I have reached the stage where two or three hours is plenty at the theme parks. Ella still loves it all, and while Ollie still refuses to go on anything except for the bumper cars and the smaller rides, he did end up going on (and loving) a pretty big/fast water slide - so we have made some progress there!

And that was about it! We’re easing back into school mode now. Ella had a three-day camp in the first week back, which she loved, and now we are straight into the usual juggle of work, school, and the kids’ various lessons and sports. Term 4 is a short one here in Queensland: eight weeks for Ella, nine for Ollie, so I’m sure it’ll fly by.