We were so excited about being in Sydney - one of our favourite places in Australia and by far one of the best cities in the World in our opinion. The plan was to live and work here until the time came to leave Australia, so pretty much as soon as we got there I had the tedious task of looking at apartments and job-hunting whilst Jim went out work with his 'boss' Cameron who was down to test the waters for a while.

What a shock we had! We certainly weren't new to Sydney and had been several times, but renting was now double the price of Brisbane and everywhere we saw had at least one Korean student sleeping in the living room....not ideal! Every recruitment agency looked at me as any other 'pommy backpacker' and told me I wouldn't have any luck with jobs until the new year. Not something you really want to hear when you're staying at disgusting over-priced hostels and the temptation of shops and fancy restaurants is on your doorstep.

Even the 'best salesmen in Brisbane' (!) were having trouble on the streets of Sydney with various words being thrown their way when they tried to stop good-looking girls.

So we had to think long and hard about whether we could survive in Sydney without being miserable and eating in to our savings, and the answer was NO unfortunately. We both decided that it was best for us to enjoy our short time there and head back to Brisbane again afterwards where we could live like kings!

So enjoy Sydney we did!! Champagne at the Opera Bar, dinner at 'The Rocks', a day on the beach in Manly, and a seafood overdose at the Sydney Fish markets to name but-a-few. We were even lucky enough to get the New Years Eve fireworks experience in Sydney Harbour on our last night when it was the live final of 'Australian Idol'! These were amazing to see and even some of the photos came out well.

So we had a stressful but enjoyable 2 weeks in Sydney and then headed back up to Brisbane in our 'Juicy' van via Byron Bay (ofcourse). On the way up receiving the good news that we had 3 new babies to meet when we got back....Daisy, Poppy & Archie were born! We certainly wet the babies' head!

Life in Brisbane has been really good so far and we're enjoying it even more than we did before. We're renting an amazing place on the river with views of the Storey Bridge which is all lit-up at night. Not exactly Sydney Harbour Bridge but it'll do! We're sharing with a Tasmanian and a Kiwi who are both lovely and we're both working too which we probably still wouldn't be doing in Sydney!

Jim is back on the streets once again with Cameron and doing really well, and I'm temping at Rio Tinto until I go back to my old job at Suncorp in the New Year. We're off to Byron Bay for Xmas for 4 days where our Xmas dinner will be a barbie on the beach, and the plan for New Years Eve is camping at Rainbow beach! So instead of glamming ourselves up for the night we'll be roughing-it in a tent with fireworks on the beach....I'm sure we can still manage some champagne though :)

We'll put some new photos on in the New Year, but until then, have a very Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year xxxx