Even though I have traveled a little bit before Australia, it was never longer than a couple of weeks, never outside of Europe, usually with my parents in an all inclusive resort and BEFORE I met Adrian. So I`m going to start the photo gallery with the first REAL and relevant adventure for this blog. The one that started the rest of my life. The biggest trip I have taken so far. The epic OZ experience. Also, we have been back and forth between Canada and Germany pretty much every year since we've been together, and I won't include every single one of those trips in this gallery because it was simply me visiting family, with no adventure whatsoever. I have included those that allowed us to travel the country a bit and and the ones that have been relevant to the way my life has changed. Like Noah's first visit to Germany and seeing his Oma for the first and last time before her passing. I also included the first holiday we've taken as a whole family with both our children. I won't bore you with vacations that simply served the purpose of us catching up with my people or with boring family pictures you neither want, nor need to see. Ok, enough blah blah. Let the pictures do the talking.
One full year of backpacking through Australia, including two visits to New Zealand
We have traveled the East Coast from Melbourne to Cape Tribulation and the West Coast from Augusta to Port Headland and back to Perth via an inland route. We have traveled by Plane, Greyhound bus, and have bought a car named Elmo for our West Coast adventure. It was a year I'll never forget and I will be forever grateful for the time I got to spend in this wonderful country, the beautiful places I got to see, and the amazing people I got to meet.
Christmas and New Years in New Zealand
I made this trip because my best friend from Germany is now living in New Zealand permanently, and since I was so close we thought it would be nice to spend Christmas and New Years together. With family you might say. It was a wonderful trip and it felt so good to spent some quality time with my bestie and actually see the places, she had only described to me over the phone thus far. I know where she lives now, got to meet the people she hangs out with and know that she's happy and well taken care of.
Second trip to New Zealand to introduce new boyfriend and get approval from bestie
Since I had such a great time the first time around, I wanted to share the New Zealand experience with Adrian. I also thought it would be cool and different to see this country in the winter time, and even though I thought I would never say this, it was nice to get a break from the hot Australian weather. I love, love, love the sun. Just not so much when I have to fruit pick for 8-10 hours a day. Lying on the beach, getting a tan? Yes Sir! Doing physical hard labor, carrying heavy bags of fruit all day. NO thanks! This was the trip that made us want to go back for a longer amount of time to travel around.
Adrian's first trip to Germany
Taking a much needed break from the cold Canadian winter
As I said before, I'm a real wuss when it comes to winter and I'm just not cut out for it. I can handle it for a while, but the winters here seem to last FOREVER and after a few months of nothing but mountains of snow and no sun, I do get a little bit depressed. I see the beauty of it some days, but the Canadian winter is simply too long for my taste. It does come in handy, that Adrian's parents own a condo in sunny Florida, because it allows us to escape this frozen hell and take a vacay for very little money. And momma likes affordable holidays a lot more than expensive ones.
Time to get to know my own country a little better
We made another trip home because we knew, we'd be leaving for another long round of travels in October, and my parents really wanted to see us again before we left. We did the most amount of traveling this time around, because Adrian wanted to see the Black Forest and I wanted to show him my country a little more. It's hard to take the time to go on trips while I'm there, because your time is very limited and is always flying by, and there are just so many people you want to see and spend time with. It seems like no matter how long I'm there for, it's never quite enough. This time though, we did get to go on quite a few day-trips and it was nice that my parents were able to take time off work to come with us. For some reason, you always tend to explore the rest of the world before you even think about your own country. So it was quite nice, not just for Adrian but for myself as well, to see some new places within Germany.
The beginning of the second big round of travel fun
When we were planning our second big trip, we thought about how we could get to see a bunch of places, but not having to spent a ton of money we didn't really have. The only way of doing that, was to stay with people we knew and save ourselves the cost of accommodation. So we thought about which places we would like to see and which people we would like to spend time with and we came up with 4 places. We also wanted to avoid being on the plane for over 20 hours straight to get from Canada to New Zealand, so we split up the long flight by stopping twice. I've always wanted to go to British Columbia. Adrian has family in Vancouver and I have a friend from Germany, who was also staying there at the time. So we made it our first stop. It is an amazing city, even though it does rain a lot and I would go back there in a heartbeat. It is one of our dreams to one day drive from Ontario all the way cross Country to BC and then either up to Alaska, or down to California. Maybe even both. Who knows what the future holds.
2 weeks in paradise
We have met a guy from Hawaii while traveling in Australia and Adrian and I thought, it would be a place worth checking out and man, am I ever glad we included this trip. Saying that place is beautiful is putting it mildly. It was amazing!!! I loved everything about it. I loved the scenery. I loved the weather. I loved the wildlife. Everywhere you looked was a picture perfect view and even though our friend was traveling through Europe at the time and wasn't even there himself, he had arranged for his mom to pick us up from the airport, let us live in his house and gave us free use of his car. Which was more than amazing. Thank you so much for that. We'll be forever grateful and hope to somehow, someday return the favor. And since he arrived half way through our stay, we even got our own local tour guide, who was able to show us a few spots not every tourist gets to see. To be quite honest, 2 weeks was not nearly enough to explore this wonderful place and we only got to see Oahu. We would love to go back there and see the rest of the islands some day. I definitely recommend a trip to Hawaii to anyone.
Main stop of the trip
Our time in New Zealand was special in so many ways. Not only did I get to see my best friend again, but a couple of our common friends from Germany came to get married in New Zealand and we got to be there for a very small intimate and beautiful ceremony. Adrian and I even had the honor of serving as maid of honor and best man. It was a special day with very close friends and we got to share their honeymoon with them and travel together for a couple of weeks. It was amazing. And after those guys moved on for a more private honeymoon in Thailand and my other friend and her partner went back to work, Adrian and I started traveling the country on our own, in a burgundy Toyota Estima named Berta Rose. We got to see a lot of special places, but our favorite place and the one we stayed at the longest, was a climbers campground named the Hangdog. Not only did Adrian get to go out and share his passion for rock climbing with like minded people, we also made a lot of friends and conceived our son Noah. This spot will always hold a special place in our hearts.
Back to where it all began
SYDNEY! I LOVE this city. Not only is this the place where my traveling journey really began, but it is simply an amazing city. I can't even tell you exactly why I love it so much. I just do. When I arrived in Australia the first time, I spent 4 month in Sydney and blew all the money I had, before I even began traveling. Stupid, but so worth it ;-) We wanted to have a layover there because we wanted to go back to the place we first met and also visit an old friend, we got to meet there. We stayed with him and his girlfriend for a couple of days and went back to a few of our favorite places, like the Opera House, the botanical garden and the hostel Adrian and I first met. It felt like coming home and I hope that I get to go back and visit this awesome city, many more times during my lifetime.
The hardest trip of my life
This trip wasn't a happy one and was certainly not a vacation. It was a tough trip and has probably shaped my character the most. It was Noah's first trip to Germany. His first time leaving Canada and being on a plane and it didn't start out all bad. We were supposed to go all together in December that year, but I kind of had a bad feeling about my mother, who I knew to be battling cancer at the time. I knew she was going through a low point and was concerned about not making it to December. Her biggest fear was to die before seeing me again or without getting to meet her grandchild. So I talked to Adrian and asked him, if he thought he could deal with us going a month early, which meant he wouldn't get to see his newborn son for 4 long weeks. I know he didn't like it, but as I've said before, he's the best and understood that I needed to be with my mother and I will be forever grateful that I made the decision of going early. Had I waited to the original travel date, I wouldn't have gotten to see her again. I flew over there, thinking our visit would give her new strength and hope and that she would magically get all better and live a long, happy life. I just didn't want to face the fact that my mother might be dying. None of us wanted to go there, least of all my father. I mean, I had just given birth to my first baby. That's a very special time in any woman's life. It's a time a daughter wants to share with her mother and needs her to be there, to listen to complains about lack of sleep and fears and the endless crying and to give advice to the endless stream of questions a new mother has about this tiny, little human being that has so suddenly entered your life. Because you have no idea what you're doing during those first few month after your baby's birth and you want to be able to talk to someone, who's been there and has raised a child before. And then we arrived and seeing her for the first time, lying in that hospital bed, so thin and just not looking like herself at all, it really finally hit me. She was REALLY sick and this might not have the happy ending I was hoping for. There were a lot of tears over us reuniting and finally being able to touch and hug and over seeing the little man and thank god, she still had enough strength left during those first few days to at least hold him on her lap. And then she told me that same day, that the doctors had told her, there was nothing they could do for her anymore and I felt like I got sucker-punched in the stomach. There was that whole talk about how she didn't want to leave us, but how we'd have to accept the facts and how we would have to promise her, we'd be there for each other and stick together and it was just a terrible moment altogether. I found her doctor right away and talked to him about her condition. Somehow, I was still hoping all that talk about dying might've just been my mother giving up hope. But he confirmed her words and only 2 very short weeks later, my mother passed away. It was not nearly enough time to prepare myself but then again, I don't think there ever IS in a situation like that. I'm just so grateful that I got to spend those two weeks with her, no matter how hard they were for all of us. She got to see her daughter again. She got to meet her grandson and I think it happened so fast after we arrived, because she was now able to let go. She didn't have to hold on anymore and wait for us to get there. We got to talk, and cuddle and hug and I will never forget those last days with this beautiful and incredibly strong woman. I miss her like crazy every day and it kills me, knowing she won't get to see my children grow up and that she never even got to meet Mia. But I know she's with us in spirit and I will tell my children about their amazing Oma all the time and one day, I'm sure we will meet again. I don't have a lot of pictures of this trip because they're sad and my mother wouldn't have wanted anybody to see her the way she looked towards the end. But I wanted to include a couple, because this trip was probably the most important one I've ever taken, because it was my son's first time traveling and because despite all of the sadness and grief, we still celebrated our first Christmas with our first child and somehow ended up making it a nice experience for Noah's sake. I'm sorry this part has gotten so long. I realize, this is supposed to be a photo gallery and I shouldn't be writing this much. But there was simply no way, I could've described this trip in 3 sentences and my mother simply deserves more than that.
First trip with both children
We have traveled the East Coast from Melbourne to Cape Tribulation and the West Coast from Augusta to Port Headland and back to Perth via an inland route. We have traveled by Plane, Greyhound bus, and have bought a car named Elmo for our West Coast adventure. It was a year I'll never forget and I will be forever grateful for the time I got to spend in this wonderful country, the beautiful places I got to see, and the amazing people I got to meet.
Christmas and New Years in New Zealand
I made this trip because my best friend from Germany is now living in New Zealand permanently, and since I was so close we thought it would be nice to spend Christmas and New Years together. With family you might say. It was a wonderful trip and it felt so good to spent some quality time with my bestie and actually see the places, she had only described to me over the phone thus far. I know where she lives now, got to meet the people she hangs out with and know that she's happy and well taken care of.
Second trip to New Zealand to introduce new boyfriend and get approval from bestie
Since I had such a great time the first time around, I wanted to share the New Zealand experience with Adrian. I also thought it would be cool and different to see this country in the winter time, and even though I thought I would never say this, it was nice to get a break from the hot Australian weather. I love, love, love the sun. Just not so much when I have to fruit pick for 8-10 hours a day. Lying on the beach, getting a tan? Yes Sir! Doing physical hard labor, carrying heavy bags of fruit all day. NO thanks! This was the trip that made us want to go back for a longer amount of time to travel around.
Adrian's first trip to Germany
I don't have a lot of pictures of that trip because we hadn't seen each other for 8 long weeks after having to part ways in Australia. So we really didn't get to leave the house much (insert eyebrow wriggle here). We did take a two day trip to Amsterdam to celebrate New Years Eve and even though it is a very cool City, it does get pretty cold with all the waterways running through it. I'd definitely go again, but maybe in the summer next time. It was also a nice trip because I got to spend some time with another one of my best friends, who was spontaneous enough to join us last minute. Unfortunately, Adrian was only able to stay for a short 2 weeks since he had to get back to work again. Luckily I got to join him in Canada - permanently - only a couple of months later.
Taking a much needed break from the cold Canadian winter
As I said before, I'm a real wuss when it comes to winter and I'm just not cut out for it. I can handle it for a while, but the winters here seem to last FOREVER and after a few months of nothing but mountains of snow and no sun, I do get a little bit depressed. I see the beauty of it some days, but the Canadian winter is simply too long for my taste. It does come in handy, that Adrian's parents own a condo in sunny Florida, because it allows us to escape this frozen hell and take a vacay for very little money. And momma likes affordable holidays a lot more than expensive ones.
Time to get to know my own country a little better
We made another trip home because we knew, we'd be leaving for another long round of travels in October, and my parents really wanted to see us again before we left. We did the most amount of traveling this time around, because Adrian wanted to see the Black Forest and I wanted to show him my country a little more. It's hard to take the time to go on trips while I'm there, because your time is very limited and is always flying by, and there are just so many people you want to see and spend time with. It seems like no matter how long I'm there for, it's never quite enough. This time though, we did get to go on quite a few day-trips and it was nice that my parents were able to take time off work to come with us. For some reason, you always tend to explore the rest of the world before you even think about your own country. So it was quite nice, not just for Adrian but for myself as well, to see some new places within Germany.
The beginning of the second big round of travel fun
When we were planning our second big trip, we thought about how we could get to see a bunch of places, but not having to spent a ton of money we didn't really have. The only way of doing that, was to stay with people we knew and save ourselves the cost of accommodation. So we thought about which places we would like to see and which people we would like to spend time with and we came up with 4 places. We also wanted to avoid being on the plane for over 20 hours straight to get from Canada to New Zealand, so we split up the long flight by stopping twice. I've always wanted to go to British Columbia. Adrian has family in Vancouver and I have a friend from Germany, who was also staying there at the time. So we made it our first stop. It is an amazing city, even though it does rain a lot and I would go back there in a heartbeat. It is one of our dreams to one day drive from Ontario all the way cross Country to BC and then either up to Alaska, or down to California. Maybe even both. Who knows what the future holds.
2 weeks in paradise
We have met a guy from Hawaii while traveling in Australia and Adrian and I thought, it would be a place worth checking out and man, am I ever glad we included this trip. Saying that place is beautiful is putting it mildly. It was amazing!!! I loved everything about it. I loved the scenery. I loved the weather. I loved the wildlife. Everywhere you looked was a picture perfect view and even though our friend was traveling through Europe at the time and wasn't even there himself, he had arranged for his mom to pick us up from the airport, let us live in his house and gave us free use of his car. Which was more than amazing. Thank you so much for that. We'll be forever grateful and hope to somehow, someday return the favor. And since he arrived half way through our stay, we even got our own local tour guide, who was able to show us a few spots not every tourist gets to see. To be quite honest, 2 weeks was not nearly enough to explore this wonderful place and we only got to see Oahu. We would love to go back there and see the rest of the islands some day. I definitely recommend a trip to Hawaii to anyone.
Main stop of the trip
Our time in New Zealand was special in so many ways. Not only did I get to see my best friend again, but a couple of our common friends from Germany came to get married in New Zealand and we got to be there for a very small intimate and beautiful ceremony. Adrian and I even had the honor of serving as maid of honor and best man. It was a special day with very close friends and we got to share their honeymoon with them and travel together for a couple of weeks. It was amazing. And after those guys moved on for a more private honeymoon in Thailand and my other friend and her partner went back to work, Adrian and I started traveling the country on our own, in a burgundy Toyota Estima named Berta Rose. We got to see a lot of special places, but our favorite place and the one we stayed at the longest, was a climbers campground named the Hangdog. Not only did Adrian get to go out and share his passion for rock climbing with like minded people, we also made a lot of friends and conceived our son Noah. This spot will always hold a special place in our hearts.
Back to where it all began
SYDNEY! I LOVE this city. Not only is this the place where my traveling journey really began, but it is simply an amazing city. I can't even tell you exactly why I love it so much. I just do. When I arrived in Australia the first time, I spent 4 month in Sydney and blew all the money I had, before I even began traveling. Stupid, but so worth it ;-) We wanted to have a layover there because we wanted to go back to the place we first met and also visit an old friend, we got to meet there. We stayed with him and his girlfriend for a couple of days and went back to a few of our favorite places, like the Opera House, the botanical garden and the hostel Adrian and I first met. It felt like coming home and I hope that I get to go back and visit this awesome city, many more times during my lifetime.
The hardest trip of my life
This trip wasn't a happy one and was certainly not a vacation. It was a tough trip and has probably shaped my character the most. It was Noah's first trip to Germany. His first time leaving Canada and being on a plane and it didn't start out all bad. We were supposed to go all together in December that year, but I kind of had a bad feeling about my mother, who I knew to be battling cancer at the time. I knew she was going through a low point and was concerned about not making it to December. Her biggest fear was to die before seeing me again or without getting to meet her grandchild. So I talked to Adrian and asked him, if he thought he could deal with us going a month early, which meant he wouldn't get to see his newborn son for 4 long weeks. I know he didn't like it, but as I've said before, he's the best and understood that I needed to be with my mother and I will be forever grateful that I made the decision of going early. Had I waited to the original travel date, I wouldn't have gotten to see her again. I flew over there, thinking our visit would give her new strength and hope and that she would magically get all better and live a long, happy life. I just didn't want to face the fact that my mother might be dying. None of us wanted to go there, least of all my father. I mean, I had just given birth to my first baby. That's a very special time in any woman's life. It's a time a daughter wants to share with her mother and needs her to be there, to listen to complains about lack of sleep and fears and the endless crying and to give advice to the endless stream of questions a new mother has about this tiny, little human being that has so suddenly entered your life. Because you have no idea what you're doing during those first few month after your baby's birth and you want to be able to talk to someone, who's been there and has raised a child before. And then we arrived and seeing her for the first time, lying in that hospital bed, so thin and just not looking like herself at all, it really finally hit me. She was REALLY sick and this might not have the happy ending I was hoping for. There were a lot of tears over us reuniting and finally being able to touch and hug and over seeing the little man and thank god, she still had enough strength left during those first few days to at least hold him on her lap. And then she told me that same day, that the doctors had told her, there was nothing they could do for her anymore and I felt like I got sucker-punched in the stomach. There was that whole talk about how she didn't want to leave us, but how we'd have to accept the facts and how we would have to promise her, we'd be there for each other and stick together and it was just a terrible moment altogether. I found her doctor right away and talked to him about her condition. Somehow, I was still hoping all that talk about dying might've just been my mother giving up hope. But he confirmed her words and only 2 very short weeks later, my mother passed away. It was not nearly enough time to prepare myself but then again, I don't think there ever IS in a situation like that. I'm just so grateful that I got to spend those two weeks with her, no matter how hard they were for all of us. She got to see her daughter again. She got to meet her grandson and I think it happened so fast after we arrived, because she was now able to let go. She didn't have to hold on anymore and wait for us to get there. We got to talk, and cuddle and hug and I will never forget those last days with this beautiful and incredibly strong woman. I miss her like crazy every day and it kills me, knowing she won't get to see my children grow up and that she never even got to meet Mia. But I know she's with us in spirit and I will tell my children about their amazing Oma all the time and one day, I'm sure we will meet again. I don't have a lot of pictures of this trip because they're sad and my mother wouldn't have wanted anybody to see her the way she looked towards the end. But I wanted to include a couple, because this trip was probably the most important one I've ever taken, because it was my son's first time traveling and because despite all of the sadness and grief, we still celebrated our first Christmas with our first child and somehow ended up making it a nice experience for Noah's sake. I'm sorry this part has gotten so long. I realize, this is supposed to be a photo gallery and I shouldn't be writing this much. But there was simply no way, I could've described this trip in 3 sentences and my mother simply deserves more than that.
First trip with both children
I was a little bit scared about going home this time around because I knew, this was going to be the first time coming home without my mother there, waiting for me. It was especially hard, because I have had my second child by then and I hated the thought of my mother not getting to meet her and her never even having a single memory of her Oma. It was a very strange feeling, entering the house I grew up in and not seeing her sitting in the kitchen, having a coffee and smiling at me. But you just have to deal with it and accept it and it was so good to finally get to spent some time with my dad. I had missed him. I had felt guilty for leaving him alone to deal with everything on his own and I knew how much easier it would've been for him, had I and the grand-kids been around to distract him. We had a wonderful time and everyone got to meet the new baby and we were able to do a lot of things as a family, like going swimming and visiting the zoo. I got to catch up with all of my friends and just relax. We haven't really gotten to do that, especially not as a couple because of the move to the new house and Adrian always working and it was nice. As usual 2 weeks weren't nearly enough, but you have to take what you can get and be grateful for it.
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