Final full day in Sydney! (March 28)

Our final full day in Sydney and we had a great day! I started out by taking Dan and Michele to the airport early morning, and stopped at the dive shop (same chain as in Melbourne) where we bought the wetsuits. Ii's fell apart so I handed in the warranty for an exchange. I had a great lamington / donut and a soy latte from a coffee shop down the street. It is owned by a 21 year old who opened her own business and makes her own pastries. It was delicious! Back to downtown Sydney I went (with my phone battery dying on me so I had to wing it in getting back to the hotel!).

Meanwhile, G took the girls to "The Walrus" for breakfast where they had delicious food and finished breaky up with macaroons!

We met back up at the hotel and I took over kid duty while G headed to "Kids on Cotton." He got a bug in his hat that the girls needed some new t-shirts and since all things summer are on crazy discounts here (fall started on March 21), it seemed like a good time to buy stuff! He came home with a new t-shirt per kid and, having been asked by Ii for a new dress for her, he also came home with new dresses for each girl. Now, S & C don't usually wear dresses (in fact, I can tell you that S has worn a dress 2 times in the past 3 years and C has worn one) but when they saw the dresses G got ... omg! S's has pegasus horses on it and C's makes her look like she's taking a trip to Martha's Vineyard!

He came back and I headed out for coffee with my step-brother on my dad's side. Ilan lives in Sydney, having just moved back to Australia from Germany. It was lovely to see him and we had a great time catching up.

Then our family of 5 headed to the lovely Sydney Observatory. It was a gorgeous day so being up that high was splendid. We walked into the observatory and learned about the GIANT telescope they use - it was installed to observe the 1874 Transit of Venus and is the oldest working telescope in Australia.

We also learned about Sydney's "time ball" that still works. It has been working since 1858, keeping Sydney's time. The time ball on top of the Observatory was dropped at exactly 1pm daily. It kept time for Sydney and ships in the Sydney Harbour. As the ball dropped, ships' officers could check the running of their chronometers, the accurate clocks essential for navigation. The ball worked based on the movement of the stars. It still runs, dropping at 1pm daily.

We stopped for lunch at “the oldest bar” in Sydney and then walked around The Rocks.

After that, we headed back to Town Square for some gelato. Then to the pool and take-out dinner from The Assembly Bar again.

We're off to Wollongong tomorrow. My sister and her family live there so we'll do some visiting and exploring south of Sydney. It's about a 90 minute drive, so not bad at all!