Catching up with family

Arrived in Brisbane today pretty exhausted. Although we've only lost 2 hours, we had an overnight flight and did not sleep a wink. Never mind, we're now in Matt's sister's lovely house in Brisbane and all our clothes, and, in fact us have had a good steam clean. We'll have at least a couple of weeks here to plan the rest of our trip.

I realise entries have been a bit thin on the ground recently so will also spend the next couple of weeks updating the website.

ADDED ENTRY BELOW

Yesterday morning we had a look around the Orchard Road area before treating ourselves to a taxi to Changi airport at 5pm. We had a good overnight flight to Melbourne although we couldn't sleep at all. We arrived at 6am to be greeted by sniffer dogs and serenaded by a Christmas tree and Christmas present playing 'Jingle Bells' on a trumpet and trombone. Being sleep deprived it all felt slightly surreal. We caught the short flight to Brisbane where Matt's sister - Andrea, her husband - Karl and their 12 year old daughter Isabel greeted us. Christy their 14 year old daughter was still in her pit. We arrived at their house in a suburb called Narangba, about 30km north of Brisbane city. They have been in Australia since August having emigrated on the strength of Andrea's special care baby nursing background. Their house is absolutely gorgeous. We also met the menagerie; Larrie and Timmy the 2 cats, Bella the boxer pup and several fish including a black frilly dude who changes colour when shown his own reflection. We all went out in the afternoon; we needed to keep awake until night time. Oh and it's grey and rainy; the first rain that Brisbane has had in a LONG time began today (and little did we know at this point that it would continue for 3 whole weeks).