Together, Apart, Together

We had a lovely Sunday morning - which began by sleeping in after a late evening with our Madison friends (Mike made a yummy lasagna without his trusty recipe and I used the cupcake pans we now own to prepare a box mix of brownies). Then, we touched based with family in the States, while talking to Grandma Linda, Grandma and PopPop beeped in and while talking to Aunt Lori, Aunt Julie, Uncle Ken, Libby and Lauren beeped in! Uncle Ken offered to send us some dried bananas, since the hydrated kind haven't dropped below $6 or $7 Australian per pound in our time here. We also tried out our pancake mix, which went over pretty well with the chocolate chips we added, although poor Mike ended up doing all the cooking I started, while I talked on the computer.

It's Sunday, so of course we caught the 377 at 11:15 and headed to the city once again. Mike, Molly and Charlie got off at Market Street at Hyde Park, one of many open green spaces with a fountain in the city, and headed one block west for the Sydney Tower. One of our guidebooks describes it as the giant marshmallow in the skyline. You can see it in our pictures here:

Charlie and Molly from the top. How does it compare to the Sears/Willis Tower?

If you've read In Too Deep, 39 Clues Book 6 by Jude Watson, you'd put Daniel and my destination high on your list of things to see in Sydney. The Police and Justice Museum in Circular Quay (very close to the Opera House) is where it's at.



I have to admit, I was a little underwhelmed, but we did learn some about the original penal colony set up by the British - the convicts were treated somewhat like the slaves in the US, with the exception that no one, except perhaps the Aboriginals who were kicked out, had a clue how to farm the local land.

I was intrigued by the wall full of mug shots - the granny in the top middle looks like she might not make a very tender pot roast...
We met back up at the Royal Botanical Gardens, after Molly and Charlie got introduced to the flying foxes/bats of the gardens. Cnn.com reports that they've tried to evict the flying foxes with loud annoying music - I'm not sure if they've been successful or not. As you might imagine, not everyone is a fan of trying to disrupt them from their chosen home, including the foxes. They've also tried to evict those sort of creepy looking eels that live here and in Centennial park, but apparently, they crawl back across the gardens from the Bay.

Our standard picnic lunch of bread, cheese, fruit and a little treat of biscuits.

Here's Miss Molly hunkered down under a tree to stay dry - weather.com promised us sun, but we had to run from a few showers in spite of the promises. Mike, Molly and Daniel were one tree away from us during the worst of it and Daniel was delivering messages (and biscuits) to Charlie and me.

Photo by Daniel

We will definitely revisit the botanical gardens - so exciting to think what new flowers will be there next time. The ones in this picture have the common name of cherry-pie, because of how they smell. The rose garden was pruned and the hyacinths, daffodils and pansies were in full bloom.

The gardens and the Domain, another open park right next to the Royal Botanic gardens, invite you to do the following:

New sun hats from the gift shop and a moment of sibling peace to go along with them.

All that sun mixed with rain finally produced a rainbow we'd been looking for all day! We're on the bus home, so the picture is out the rain covered window, but it was pretty, trust us: a double one that ran from one side of the sky to the other. It was cool enough to wake Molly up from her nap on a lap, but not Charlie. Let a sleeping Charlie lie.