I struggled a little with what to call this post.  Runners up in the title stakes were “The House of no sleep goes on a holiday” and “The house of cruddy lungs goes on holiday”.  Ultimately though the “House of germs goes on holiday” seemed most apt.  Because that is what our family is, a house of never-ending, sleep stealing, cruddy lung irritating germs.

It is no secret among friends and family that I find motherhood tough.  I breed bright, attractive, somewhat eccentric kids who are not physically resilient.  Since May our home has been a hotbed of vomiting, snotty, wheezy kids and as I tend to get vomited snotted on frequently I have also been persistently under the weather.  Two weeks ago our germy family was summoned to Sydney for a family wedding (Bub 1 was a pageboy).  I was pretty happy about this – Sydney is absolutely, positively my favourite city in the world, and snotty, wheezy kids or not I was determined to have a good time.  During the lead up to our trip things were pretty rough though.  The trip countdown went like this:

Two nights before departure:  Bub 1 develops a cold and fever.  Becomes delirious and spends all night roaming around my bedroom confused and pushing imaginary “pause buttons” on furniture because “Mum – you have to pause it”.  I never really figured out what he wanted me to pause, an imaginary DVD in his confused little head I guess.

One night before departure:  Bub 2 develops a cold and fever.  Becomes delirious and spends all night roaming around my bedroom in fear of “angry birds”.  Never did figure out whether he meant the game or just birds that were angry.

Morning of departure:  Still trying to fend off sinusitis I also develop mastitis.

At this stage if we were travelling for any other reason than a family wedding, or even if Bub One was not in the wedding I would have called off the trip.  Instead I bundled my germy family on a plane and we headed to Sydney.  What followed though surprised me – we all improved and although I still had to contend with profound sleep deprivation due to minimally sleeping baby syndrome we had an amazing time exploring the Rocks district (my new favourite part of my favourite city).

The view from Observatory Hill in the Rocks. My Mum went to school right where this photo was taken.

Lulled into a false sense of security I dressed my (I thought) now non-germy family in their glad-rags and we headed to the wedding.

Alas on the walk to the wedding Bub 2 seemed unusually tired and spent the entire service crashed out asleep in the stroller.

Little Lady Bub who was frocked out in the most flamboyant baby finery I could find was unusually grisly and started to look like this.  It soon became apparent that she was developing a rip-roaring fever.

At this stage Bub 1 was still happy looking like this but all that would change in a few hours when he developed yet another fever and had to leave the reception three hours early and went on to be delirious again.

What followed was decent into the twilight zone of zero sleep for me, for days on end as Little Lady Bub deteriorated, developed bronchiolitis and ended up requiring hospital admission and feeding via a nasogastric tube.  Let me just say there is nothing worse as a mother than seeing your child really unwell.  The good news – Little Lady Bub improved quickly in hospital (there was another mum-travel blogger in our ward)  and we all made it back to Melbourne rid of our germs.

So why am I sharing this story?  I guess as a travel blogger it is easy to gloss over the bad bits, to share pretty photos, and rave about fabulous destinations.  The reality for me though is that daily life with my kids is challenging, due in large part to persistent illness and sleep deprivation.  When we travel I take those challenges with me and sometimes the challenges become significant enough to totally derail a trip.  What traveling does, (when the trips aren’t totally derailed) is funnel a wealth of positive experiences into a difficult phase in my life.  And that is why now, only one week after the trip from hell I am on another trip.   In the midst of our winter of germs I made a flash decision that we needed to get, at least for a week back to warm weather, and booked a trip to beautiful Cairns (my second most favourite city in the world).  Somewhat traumatised by the illness and disarray of our Sydney trip I thought long and hard about cancelling this one.  I didn’t though, and as I write this I am on a high after my first flight on my own with my three kids.  The sweet little things (even though one has a new germ) were amazing, strangers were kind and helped me along the way, and I just experienced an amazing sunset drive past rainforest covered mountains.  Better still I will be spending time with beloved friends.  I am, right now, hopeful this trip will be a good one.  I may, or it may not, but right now, I am glad I am here.

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