New Year’s – Katie’s Visit (Part 2 of 2)

We spent a week in Sydney over New Years. It’s a great place to visit – so many great things to see. It rained our first day there, but the rest of the time was beautiful.

Our first dinner in Sydney – Cheers! We took the ferry to Manly, which is one of our favourite stops in Sydney. It’s one of the best surfing beaches in the Sydney area. The view of the Harbour Bridge is the best from a ferry!   

 

 

 

 

 

                           We had to take Katie to see the Opera House, of course!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The day we went to Bondi Beach was gorgeous, close to 100 degrees. We told Katie about how the sun is different here in Oz, but she wanted to go home with some “colour”. She laid out in the sun for about 30-45 minutes without any sunscreen (despite our warnings) and ended up extremely burned. She said it was the worst of her life!

Just before the burn started…. Beginning to feel it now…The only smart ones of the group :)  New Year’s Eve was an experience of a lifetime! Our day started early – we were standing in line by 9am  - waiting for the Tarpean Precinct to open. It was a large area sectioned off for the fireworks display at midnight. They only allowed 6,000 people in that area and it was an awesome spot to see the fireworks.We got the perfect spot! We could see the Harbour Bridge right in front of us, which is where the fireworks were launched. We settled in on our blanket with our cooler, games, books, and iPods and waited for the fireworks. It was a long wait, but we had fun.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They had a family firework show at 9pm for all the kids and it was really good. It made us very excited for the midnight show! The finale was definitely worth waiting 15 hours for! It was the most amazing fireworks display we’d ever seen. Here’s a little video from the end of the show.

We spent New Year’s Day at the Taronga Zoo. It was fun to show Katie all the Aussie animals. Anthony and I got to see a tasmanian devil and a platypus for the first time too! The view of the City from the zoo was really cool!For the last two days of our stay, we moved to a hotel in Parramatta, which is about a half an hour outside Sydney. This was one of the bridges we crossed – we thought it was one of the coolest bridges we’ve seen.We spent a whole day at the Blue Mountains. It took us about an hour to get there from Parramatta. It started out raining a bit, but it cleared up and turned out to be a beautiful day. We took a lot of pictures, so if you would like to see them, you can click on the photo album below to see them. It was a highlight of our Sydney trip.

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Our last day in Sydney, we went to the Hillsong church. Anthony and I had gone to the City campus the last time we were in Sydney, so this time, we went to the Hills campus, which is close to Parramatta. It was a beautiful building and a great service. A fun way to end our trip to Sydney.

Katie flew home to the States from Sydney and Anthony and I headed back to Melbourne. We had a wonderful visit and made some awesome memories! Thanks for visiting, Kate! We love you!