It’s been about a month since we went to Orange, and today is the first opportunity I’ve had to sit down and blog about it (after making collages and uploading all the photos!)

I had been planning this trip since the start of the year and the plans changed many times over – originally it was only going to be me and my four kids driving to Orange with Marty and Thomas meeting us in Sydney, but they ended up being able to come for the whole trip! Everything came together in the end and it was such a great holiday for us all. Let’s dive right in!

I had decided early on to fly Darby and Chance down so the car wouldn’t be so cramped on the way down, and so Darby got to spend some extra time with his Godfather Uncle Felix. We were up at 4:30am to get the boys to the airport for their 6am flight, then I was back home a bit before 7am to get the kids in the car, get the final packing done, and get on the road before 8am (I think??) We stopped in Toowoomba for a quick stretch and toilet break, then Goondiwindi for lunch, then made our way to Coonabarabran for the night, where we had a great dinner at the local pub. The boys made it down to Orange with no drama and had a great time with Felix and his family.

We arrived around lunch time and Darby was very excited, and somewhat nervous to show me his new mullet! It actually looked quite cute so I didn’t mind too much! Felix took our five kids and his two girls, with his friend and his two boys, out for sushi for lunch while Marty and I headed to Felix & Erica’s old house that they are setting up as an AirBNB, that they offered for us to stay in. We unpacked a bit before meeting the gang at the sushi place and after that we picked up the Woollies order I had done online the day before. We met them down at this awesome outdoor multi purpose hard court where we played soccer for over an hour which kept us nice and warm!

We headed back to Felix and Erica’s and had a lovely afternoon in their back yard, with Felix giving all the kids training on the excavator. You can imagine how much fun they had!! We all then walked down to a fabulous burger joint for dinner which was SO GOOD. We were all pretty exhausted by this point and were pretty happy to head home and sit around the fire and settle in to the lovely house.

The next day was super relaxed, with Quinn taking the girls to school with Felix, and we hit up some op-shops and just walked around in the beautiful sunshine. Felix’s assistant is really into fishing, and kindly took Chance out for the day to some fishing spots, but unfortunately they didn’t catch anything. We went to a park and the kids had a game of soccer with Marty then I think we just had an easy afternoon back at the house. I made dinner for us all and we headed over to Felix and Erica’s to share the meal and hang out.

Part 2 coming up!