OK, I’m officially getting excited now! Less than three weeks to go and its all becoming very real…
Wow, I can’t believe we’re actually going to Australia for our hols! If you’d have told me a year ago that we would be doing this, I wouldn’t have believed it. It is very out of character for us to spend such a lot of money on a holiday but needs must and desperate times call for desperate measures… We all deserve a lovely holiday for a start.
However, this could either be a life changing trip or just a very nice holiday. If we love it and we like what we see property-wise and work-wise, we may consider making a one year trial move. If we like it but decide it should simply remain a lovely holiday and nothing more, that will then have to prompt other changes to our life in the UK.
We need to perfect our work / life balance and make the most of the “life” portion of that. Moving to Oz could be the answer but if not, a move in the UK to a better setting and a career re-assessment on my part may be the alternative. Time will tell but a lot hinges on this holiday. I really want us all to love Sydney as the better climate and more laid back lifestyle would really suit us all but at the same time, I wonder what the repercussions of that will be for my wife and her family…
Whilst we are in Sydney, we have arranged to meet with one of my wife’s friends on our second day and the next day she will be visiting a school for an hour or so in the morning to see what schools in Sydney are like (both for her work and for our girls). That will give her the opportunity to ask questions about teaching in Oz and also to get a feel for the environment. The rest of the holiday is still not organised as we have not got round to putting together an itinerary. We must get round to that… We know we want to pop into a couple of estate agents to look at properties for sale (see what the good old Australian Dollar buys you these days) and I want to pop in to an employment agency for a quick chat about work but other than that, it will be all about sightseeing and if the weather permits, strolls on the beach :-) We just have to organise the whole sightseeing and beach bit… This weekend – I promise!
Hi Richard, It's great that you are getting the opportunity to visit with the time to do some research.
ReplyDeleteMy only advice would be not to try hard too hard to love it...if that makes sense.
When you're on holiday everything seems unreal and removed from everyday life. Try and imagine the more mundane things like the traffic, the supermarkets, the schools, cost of things etc. I'm in no way wanting to put you off as I actually love, love living in Australia. I just remember coming for 4 weeks and loving it and then we had the very fortunate opportunity of being here a year before making a decision. In that time we were able to weigh up things and come to a realistic decision about where we wanted to live, what things we needed to ship over, what we could buy etc.
Instead of trying to mix everything together during your holiday, maybe you could allocate a certain amount of exclusive time to research and the rest to having a jolly good time!!
good luck.
Thanks for the advice Beth, its much appreciated and makes perfect sense. We have allocated the third day of our holiday for on the ground research and the rest will be a holiday as we want to make the most of our 12 days there. I completely get what you are saying and agree. We have discussed this at length and if we come back with positive feelings about Sydney, we will apply for visa's and do a 1 year trial once the visa's come through. If we go down that road, we'll look at a house swap for the year and then re-assess when the year is up. Its all an adventure and it starts here! Lets see how the holiday goes - really looking forward to it :-)
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