Heading Down Under

October 27th/28th--When we got up this morning, we quickly packed our suitcases up in order to leave the resort at 10:00 a.m. We made it to the airport by 10:45 a.m., which was plenty of time for our 12:05 p.m. flight back to Bangkok. Again, we had an hour long flight from Phuket to Bangkok. Upon arriving in Bangkok, we had to retrieve our luggage and then re-check for our International flight into Sydney. We got a little caught up at baggage claim though. Only 2 of the 4 suitcases came out and the carousel was saying Last Bag. Well, we finally found out that a whole cart went to the wrong place and was on its way back. We did finally get our other 2 suitcases and off we went to check in with Qantas. It was an easy process and we had a pass to get inside the Qantas Business Lounge which was wonderful. We had over 2 hours until our flight left and the kids were starving. So, we spent time in the lounge eating, watching a movie, and checking e-mails. Our plane started boarding at 4:45 p.m. and everyone was on with doors closed by 5:15 p.m., but we couldn't take off early because of the 6:00 a.m. curfew into Sydney. Since Sydney Airport is located in the city, planes can't land until after 6:00 a.m. Anyway, the flight was very nice and uneventful. We all ate dinner, watched movies and then the kids went to sleep pretty quickly. Mike and I got a little bit of rest before landing. After landing, we went through Immigrations, got our bags and then went through Customs. Customs in Australia is like no other country. They are very strict about what you bring into the country...no food of any kind, no soiled clothing items, and no wooden products. If you have any of these items, they have to be searched to approve entry or be put in quarantine. We were lucky to get clearance from a guy at the baggage claim. He came by asked for our customs form and then asked us the major questions. He stamped our form and pointed us to an exit that would make us getting out a whole lot quicker. And boy did it make it much quicker...everyone else that wasn't following us was having to put all their luggage/bags through x-ray machines. So, we were out of the airport a little after 7:00 and getting into a taxi. We arrived at our apartment by 8:00. Unfortunately, our apartment was not ready for us. We had planned on all crashing until about lunch, but that clearly wasn't happening. We stored our baggage and walked down to the Darling Harbour area. We immediately found a playground so the kids played there for about 2 hours. I actually laid down on the ground and took a little nap. Yes, I was that tired. Mike said I looked like a homeless person. We then walked back and were able to get into the apartment about 11:00. I laid down again and took another short nap until we had our luggage delivered. Once our luggage arrived, we sorted out the laundry and started washing. We had a weeks worth of clothes to wash. We ate lunch at Subway and then went to the Sydney Aquarium for the afternoon. The aquarium is on the Darling Harbour. It was a nice outing for us especially since it was pretty low key and kept us from all sleeping too much. After the aquarium, we enjoyed some sunlight by the harbour before heading back to the apartment. Austin and Mike laid down about 5:00 p.m. Mike woke up from his nap, but Austin was asleep for the night. The rest of us ordered pizza before heading to bed early.