Holiday, what holiday?

Yesterday Rob and I came home from an amazing child-free five days away in Noosa.

Rob has a really high stress job and works ridiculous hours so the past few months have meant he’s hardly around on week days and weekends with four kids are anything but relaxing. So my lovely Mum offered to mind the boys and Holly’s best friend’s family were extremely kind to take her in for a few nights and we abandoned ship and buggered off to Queensland.

In all honesty I can see how couples drift apart when life gets in the way of making marriage work. If you aren’t careful and don’t pay attention, the divide can get wider and wider until it’s too hard to get back. So I think time away from the kids is important to re-group and remind yourself why you got married in the first place, because sometimes (often) life is so stressful and hard that it’s easy to point the finger at your partner and blame them for it.

With four kids, a husband who works harder than anyone else I know, my recent 3 month dip of pretty awful depression, a major running injury and still adjusting to life back in Sydney when I’d rather be in London – the past year has been stressful and this was exactly what we needed.

It was complete bliss.

Noosa ticks all the boxes for me. Gorgeous hotels right on the beach, amazing restaurants, loads of great shops, excellent people watching and the absolutely stunning Noosa National Park and its glorious cliff side trails to run along. All within a stones throw of each other.

We ate, we slept, we swam, I ran, we walked, we talked, we laughed.

I shopped, he didn’t question it, he shopped, I stood waiting outside change rooms and saw what it was like with the shoe on the other foot.

We ate more, I ran more, he walked more, we went to bed at 9pm every night, we read books! I watched him un-wind from a crazy year at work, I saw the lines vanish from around his eyes and I watched both of our tan lines darken.

We re-grouped, remembered why we fell in love. We promised to do this more often and to never forget why we love each other.

We listened.

It was the perfect week of just Rob and Steph. Completely indulgent and a little bit selfish but just completely needed and wonderful.

Yesterday we left Queensland with heavy hearts and much heavier luggage (9kg to be exact). I had post holiday depression before I’d even boarded my flight but coming home to the kids soothed the pain.

Until today.

All before 9am I had a sick child, a bit of vomit, a car that wouldn’t start, kids late for school because we had to walk and then to top it all off on the way home from school an enormous pterodactyl sized bird flew overhead and shat all over me.

WELCOME HOME, what holiday?