we don’t get the chance often.. actually, we don’t get the chance at all! our work schedules see Regan and I only sharing 1 day a week together all day, so when his timetable changed, and there was a city Xmas party coming up.. we decided to take the kids and stay in the city overnight!

i finished up work at 5pm, Regan finished at 6pm, dinner in the city was at 7pm, kids bedtime is 9pm and we both had Wednesday off. it just made sense to stay overnight, even though it’s only about a 40 minute drive home – it would give us a chance to do something different while we had the chance, and the kids hadn’t met Regan’s old workmates yet.

i used wotif.com to book our room at the Novotel Darling Harbour the day before and packed up the car with the essentials and away we went!! dinner at the lowenbrau is always good, but this time it was challenging to keep Jasper still for 1 minute… i spent most of the evening walking around The Rocks with him, showing him different things and goofing around… it wasn’t until i spotted some textas and a picture to colour in that he sat still and had a late second dinner… Jovie was a very good girl all night until i spotted her bottom lip pout and knew she would crack it asap if we didn’t leave LOL… (and i was right, she screamed all the way to the hotel!)

the kids decided that 11.30pm would be a better bed time than the usual 9pm, but after a good night’s sleep we woke at 4.30am and then finally got up for the day at 7am. breakfast was mcdonalds and then a walk around Darling Harbour… when Regan and I used to live in Ultimo, Darling Harbour was one of the places we would frequent pretty much every day so it was good to take the kids (finally) and have a look around a few things have changed since i’d been there last (maybe 12 months ago??) – Sega world is gone and there’s a big circus tent in Tumbalong Park!

Novotel Darling Harbour is pretty nice – great location and in reach of everything, room had a great view, staff where nice, beds comfy, bathroom clean. the only gripe was that our double pram didn’t fit through the door, so i had to assemble/dissemble it in the hallway first before going/leaving. there was wi-fi available in our room, but i figure we’re there to get away (if only for 12 hours), let’s not get silly LOL. we left at about 10am, to make it back home for 11am to run some errands…

so overall, we had a great time next time (and yep, we decided that there will be a next time!) we will try to spend the rest of the day in the city instead of rushing back… hopefully Jovie will be walking or at least understand a bit more if we go to the aquarium or wildlife world… but i can’t wait to go back just to escape the routine!