Melbourne evening and Andre Rieu

Thanks to Corinna who presented us with tickets to Andre Rieu , we took the train in to the city for a special evening.The (fairly new) Federation Square is a great place to eat and we had a bit of a look around the city. Melbourne has changed a lot over the years,with the river being a focal point these days .

One of the many bridges across the Yarra is this pedestrian-bridge.

It was a real balmy evening in Melbourne and many people on their way to the Rod Laver Arena at Melbourne's tennis centre where the Andre Rieu Concert was held

Willy on her way back from refusing to pay $25 for a programme. "Not in 25 years" Willy said, that's my girl .....!!!!

Keep smiling sis, it suits ye.

Out with Willy and Chris

The first few days with our visitors were quite wet ,so when we went to this waterfall it gave us a beautiful show. We travelled to Traralgon to see Jack and Sophie Hooimeyer.Jack took us to a town which had been badly affected by the bush fires last Feb. We were saddened by all the destruction , but as you can see, the trees are coming back.

Jack and Sophie took us out for lunch . Sophie's sister Corinne drove about 1.5 hours to join us, which was a lovely surprise

Back closer to home -we had a barbeque at Warburton. There are really good cooking facilities in most parks and we had the place to ourselves so it was a real hit.

Warburton is situated along the Yarra River which flows through Melbourne further down. The locals have made a walk along the water which is very pleasant.As you can see the gumtrees are huge!

Continuing Willy and Chris' visit Oct 09

Willy and Chris visited us during the months of October and November. They stayed with us for just over 5 weeks. We really enjoyed eachothers' company. We stayed at Phillip Island for appr. 5 days and did lots of walking, the weather was just right, here we are on Churchil Island which was very close to the holidayhome from where we made our excursions.A hike around a small peninsula gave us scenery we had never seen before.

At the halfway point we had a break and enjoyed the scenery.

There were plenty of seats on which the elderly could regain their strength.

At Kilcunda we sat on the beach and watched the surf. The weather was just ideal for walking not too warm, nor too cold.

Will

Willy and Chris' visit

We went to the aquarium in Melbourne - the new penguin display is very impressive. Here they are being fed. They know their keeper. The conditions are the same as in Antarctica - extremely cold! Here a walkthrough dome allows us to see the fish and sharks and manta rays from below them.

The manta rays are huge !

Kiran (Tim and Amrit's youngest) stayed with us when Willy and Chris first arrived. She loved them. This is the forest where we usually go for our walk in Silvan.

West Australian Holiday

David and Sara took some time out and we went to a holiday park in Busselton . Here Aiden is practicing his balancing on the railing - so much more fun than just walking !

Megan is growing up very quickly . She does not think just going down a slide is enough fun - a swing up the top is part of the routine every time.

Busselton has a very long pier with some shops on the end . We watched some people fishing successfully from this platform .

The children can't go to the beach without going into the water it seems. No matter how cool we thought it was all the clothes had to come off or get very wet . We did have lovely weather about 25c every day - too cool for us to swim though !

Aiden is really growing up. We gave him a construction kit for an aeroplane - Hank helped him put it together . They were busy with it for several hours

Here we are in Rockingham a town close to David and Sara's home. We had a picnic on the beach.

Megan loves to climb and swing . She is a very determined little girl who already thinks she knows her own mind . It was so special to spend time with them.

You can see where the little girl gets her climbing from ! Aiden goes to school two days a week now - we went there with Sara one day when she was 'on duty'. It was great fun.

40th Wedding Anniversary

We were thrilled to receive these flowers from the family in Holland. Thank you very much! As you can see they are beautiful and actually becoming more special still as they open up. Annemarie and Gary and the children , and Tim and Amrit and the girls , came for a girl cooked tea and we got out our wedding slides and some others for an old fashioned slide night .That was fun . We also had some friends come for coffee in the morning . So it was all rather low key but still a really special day.

Hank bought these roses - 40 of them. These are the same type of rose that I had in my wedding bouquet - they smell gorgeous and look stunning.