12/30 & 31, 2013

On Monday, a Brisbane, Australia family that my daughter's family became friends with when they visited Disneyland in Hong Kong drove up to spend the day with us on the beach in Noosa and then back at our pool the Outrigger Noosa.  Carol also had fun showing the kids how to do Origami.

Carol volunteers at the Children's Hospital in St. Paul MInnesota visiting children in the hospital who are there for extensive treatment and there is nothing she likes better than playing with a group of kids, especially if most of them are her grandchildren.

This morning, New Year's Eve day, we all flew from Noosa to Sydney.  Everything went very smoothly at both airports and we were able to get an 8 passenger taxi van to take all of us to our hotel in Sydney.  We're staying at the Radisson Hotel near Darling Harbour.  It's not the fanciest hotel but the location is outstanding and we have two 2-bedroom suites for the eight of us.  The two oldest of our granddaughters are bunking with us and the youngest two are staying with Amy and Justin.

This afternoon we walked down to Darling Harbour for lunch and to scout out good places to watch the fireworks tonight.  There are many restaurants down by the harbor and a park for the kids to play.

We went back to the hotel late in the afternoon for a couple of hours to get unpacked and have dinner.  Then we went back to Darling Harbour to watch the fireworks.  There was a massive crowd gathered at Darling Harbor and it is only one of many places for fireworks in Sydney on New Year's Eve.  The Sydney newspaper said this year's fireworks were going to be the largest event they've ever done and they've always been very serious about their fireworks.

The Darling Harbour site was designated as a family-friendly site with no alcohol allowed.  In fact they searched  people's bags for alcohol when you crossed into the harbor park on the footpath.   There are other sites where you are allowed to BYOB and in the past they've gotten very rowdy and sometimes violent so I was glad we were so close to this site.  With that many people crowded together, adding alcohol to the mix is something I'd just as soon skip.

They shot off the fireworks at both nine (for the family friendly sites) and at midnight.  The fireworks were fantastic and we  couldn't have asked for a better spot to watch them.

Tomorrow we're taking a ferry across the harbor to the Sydney zoo.