How hard can it be?

So dates locked in... May 2013..... annual leave booked and confirmed!  FIVE WEEKS!  YAY!

Destination sorted... UK for a couple of weeks, home visit then over to France ... oh joy.....

So how hard can it be?

Quite hard apparently.... planes.... trains..... accommodation...... which to book first.... why don't the train and plane times line up ever? sigh..... let's not argue... I am sure it will come right in the end....

But finally..... details sorted.... we have an itinerary....

Inside Lane Cottages, Tarvin

Brisbane to Manchester...... stay in our favourite holiday cottages in Tarvin, Cheshire for a couple of weeks....

Lane Cottages, Tarvin

 .... visit friends and family... then catch the train from Chester

High Street, Chester

to London...

Shopping anyone?

London Bridge

spend a couple of nights in London.... stay at The Landmark Hotel


catch a show in the West End - The Audience, with Helen Mirren in the lead role,


hop on the Eurostar to Lille,
...... transfer to the TGV down to Avignon and spend a couple of weeks in a villa in Provence before a last splash in a swish hotel in Aix en Provence before

...sigh.....

........ catching those flights and heading back to Brisbane .....

Sounds like bliss.....

Change of heart....

Then I remembered... its been a while.... as ex pat's living in Australia... we haven't done a home visit... not in a long while... 6 years in fact... and well... 2013?  Its Mum's 70th.... K's 60th... our 20th anniversary.... my niece's 18th.... hmmmm... can we afford both?  No... so which is it?

In the end its a no brainer, but devastatingly disappointed.... I was so looking forward to Thailand... don't worry dear... your hours and hours of research won't got to waste... we will go in 2014 instead.... well maybe...

So... let's start researching a European trip for May 2013... how hard can that be? ....  "I fancy throwing in a France trip while we are over there".... and there it is again.... Research Heaven....