Minus Three outing

Having chosen to live halfway across the world from family and friends, and having chosen to lead a nomadic lifestyle with little permanency, and having chosen to homeschool, means that there is little break from the children. There is actually no break at all except for the hour after they have fallen asleep and before I go to bed. And it is great. We have lots of fun together and when I think about what I would do on my own it is not a huge list. They are good and lively company and they are much more engaging and interested in what we do than most adults. Nonetheless, with my parents in town Jakob and I were excited to take advantage of their kindness and see what it is like to be a twosome again. After all, when Avi and Rona are around, the kids would rather be playing with them anyhow.

One of the biggest frustrations with children is how patient you have to be. All the time. Everything is slow and everything is debatable or cause for tears or shrieks of joy. Everything is multiplied by four (I am including myself here). Even applying sunblock in the morning requires a twenty minute time slot - run after Tova and apply to one arm, smear some on Aurora and convince her to rub it in herself, tend to Sophia who has been patiently waiting, take a break from Sophia to catch Tova who is running by screaming 'run awaaay!', apply to Tova's other arm, finish up with Sophia, remind Aurora to do the rest of her limbs, run after Tova and negotiate over who gets to do her face.  To have a fun successful day, you become less ambitious and more realistic about timing. The one km walk to the train station will likely take half an hour. Putting on shoes will generally take 15 minutes. So I was looking forward to both getting to spend time with Jakob and to getting to be a quicker, more productive human for a couple of days.

With Jakob busy with work that meant it was up to me to do the planning for our two days away. Having just read the above paragraph you can probably guess what my plans involved. Sure we are tired and might have enjoyed sitting at a beach drinking martinis and reading books but I truly believe we are happy for going the opposite route. Here is a rundown of our 32 hours without children: drive to Royal National Park, go for 10km trail run, since that took only an hour decide to keep going, run the last 17 km of the trail, limp down to the pier, take a ferry and two trains, walk back to the car, drive 2 hours to Jervis Bay, eat takeout Thai at our B&B, chat with the owner about the area, sleep, sit down for a cup of tea, hike to a lighthouse, have breakfast, sit in a cafe so Jakob can drink coffee, kayak to a marine reserve in Jervis Bay and back, ocean swim, drive to a beach and go for a swim, read our books on the beach, hike out and around a waterfall, drive back to Sydney. It was really incredible how much one can get done in the morning without children. We had time to eat three different breakfasts and go for a hike before 9am! We could act foolishly with no great consequences or whining - having a good time running so we'll just keep going. It was really refreshing. We got back home with bronzed arms, windblown hair, sore muscles, and engorged breasts ready to hug the children and re-enter Parramatta life (whatever that might be).

Almost unrecognizable without girls flocking around him