Australia(June 2023)

 I am not sure why, but Australia has always been a place I wanted to visit.

As soon as I realized we would be moving to South Korea, it became a 

'when would we go', not an 'if we go' trip. 

After talking with the kids and seeing where they wanted to go and giving our

(at that time) soon to be college kid, the option to rate her must see locations, 

Australia went to the top of our list. 

I really wanted to make it a 14-17 days trip and visit New Zealand, but someone

could not take that much time off work.

So we decided to explore Sydney and do a day trip to the Blue Mountains.

This was the view walking out of the airport!

Beautiful skies and amazing air and I felt at home.

We headed to the hotel and checked in. We were a little early and only one of

our rooms were ready. So we headed to the club lounge for some

snacks and coffee and waited for the other room to be ready.

We didn't have to wait long at all before the second room was ready.

We stayed at the Sydney Harbour Marriott Hotel at Circular Quay

 and it was in the best location.

We had a view of the Harbour Bridge and the old two kids

had a view of the Sydney Opera House.

The first order of business was getting local currency 

and SIM cards for our phones. 

I quickly discovered the shopping was going to be amazing!

We all did a little retail therapy at our favorite stores

before our visit in Sydney was done.

After we got the business stuff out of the way we decided to 

grab some lunch. Normally, we try to find local places,

but I was a little hangry due to a flight delay and no food at the airport that I could eat.  Plus I was

trying to ration my snacks until we could visit a grocery store. I spotted

a Five Guys and that was it. I can eat there and the kids love it, so that become lunch.

After that we headed back to our rooms to clean up before heading out

on a boat tour to see the lights.

Vivid Sydney was going on during our trip

and I wanted to see the city from the water.

We also had a great view from our rooms and could even see the 

drone show from there. That was a great bonus, because the number of 

people were insane.

While the boat cruise we took was not my favorite, because I waited

too long to book, the views were amazing!

The pictures do not do it justice!

I almost booked another cruise, just 

to see it again.

We had been on the ground less then 8 hours

and I had already fallen in love with Sydney.

After the boat cruise was done we headed back to the hotel.

We visited the club lounge for snacks and cocktails, before we

called it a night. It had been a long day and tomorrow was

going to be a jammed packed day.