Relaxing in Hawaii

After a flying visit to Australia, seeing our Mum's, Dad's, sisters, aunties, Nanna and our friends we flew out to Hawaii.  We waited at the outdoor car rental stand at Honolulu airport and the consultant kindly told us that the car we booked would not fit all of our luggage!  As other travellers drove off in their Mustangs we drove off in our white Toyota Tarago van.  A short drive around Honolulu made us glad that the house we rented was on the North Shore and out of the hustle and bustle of the city.  It took us about an hour to get to the North Shore and we were over the moon with the house we chose on the Internet.

Hone Wai

Our backyard was the beach

Within minutes of walking in, Steve was walking on the beach and calling us to look at the Green Turtles feeding on the weed on the rocks.  Taylor even fed the turtles on our first swim, until we read that this was not a good idea.

Taylor swimming with turtles

We had a truly relaxing time in Hawaii.  The nearby historical town of Haleiwa was wonderful and had all we could ever need.  We did our grocery shopping at the Farmer's market on Sunday and ate out once a day at all sorts of small restaurants in Haleiwa which was also good for a bit of clothes and souvenir shopping.

Our visit to the Polynesian Cultural Centre

Australia Bound

We departed for our first trip back to Australia since arriving in Labrador City at the end of July.  We had gorgeous weather that week but on the day we were scheduled to fly out it was pouring rain.  We took our seats and were waiting on the Wabush tarmac at 11.30am for our Provincial Airlines flight to depart when the pilot announced that there was a problem.  The weather radar had failed and it was critical for the flight to Montreal on a day like today.  Off we got, back into the terminal to await furher news.  After a couple of hours we were booked onto the next flight out of Wabush at 6.30pm, meaning we would miss our flight to London that night, oh well, not much you can do.

Instead of catching our onward flight we booked into the airport hotel and spent the next day in Montreal.  It was Cooper's birthday so we went in search of some playgrounds.  We made the mistake of doing too much on our first day of holidays and by the afternoon we were hot and tired and we still had to get ready for our overnight flight to London.  Fortunately we all slept well on the flight and were excited to be in London the next morning.

We spent another three days in London, trying to see the sights with some rest time too.  We took a Thames river cruise, went on the London Eye, browsed at Harrods and by far the highlight for the boys was the Tower of London. Knights, swords, cannons, a castle, what more could they ask for?

Cooper & Kristy at the London Eye

Ryder and Cooper at the Tower of London