Dear Sebastian Jaya,
It’s a new year and time for new beginnings and time for me to sit down and write to you before time slips through our fingers and memories become blurred in my mind. It’s been such a busy start to the year, but first, Christmas…
We made it through Christmas, this is how I felt about our first Christmas without my Dad {your Pop-Pop} – it was tough to say the least. My heart was broken and nothing felt the same; but we made it through the day. I filled my heart with joy and love from watching you, Sebastian, all your excitement on this special day of the year. You had a wonderful day and you were absolutely spoilt by your Mama and Dada and your Gran. We are truly blessed to have you, our funny happy little man, in our lives.
Just before Christmas I booked a last minute holiday. We had endured so much sadness throughout 2019 and I desperately wanted some family time. Time for us to just BE and put our worries aside for a little while. I felt like you had seen me cry more than laugh and that’s not how I want things to be, Sebby. I was also feeling the dread of Kinder approaching, my baby going off to Kinder and all the worries in the world about our transition.
So, totally spontaneous and last-minute, we booked a family holiday to Vanuatu – one of the happiest places on Earth! I needed sunshine, ocean and happy times with my boys, you Sebby and your Dada.
While you slept, we spend New Years Eve finishing up our packing for Vanuatu and watching the heartbreaking news unfold of the bushfires, the worst Australia has ever experienced. It was a sad way to start the new year, and perhaps even more reason for us to jump on a plane and get a way for a while.
We left Melbourne on the 2nd January. A new adventure for the new year, it was just what we needed. If there’s one thing I learnt last year through losing my Dad {your Pop-Pop}, it’s spend time with loved ones and try to enjoy the moment, as you never know when it all might come to an end.
Sebby, you were most excited about getting the SkyBus to the airport, you’d never been on the SkyBus before {just because previously all our flights were too early in the morning to get the bus}. So our trip began with great excitement. We also had a flight transfer at Sydney Airport, which you thought was lot’s of fun having to get a bus from the Domestic terminal to the International terminal. Typical you Seb, you love the journey, you always have! A long day and two flights later, we arrived in Port Vila, Vanuatu just before midnight. We were tired, didn’t quite know where we were going and it was pitch black in the middle of the night but we made it to a small motel in town for our first night of our holidays, heavy heads hitting the pillow at close to 1.30am.
The next morning brought with it beautiful views of the blue skies and blue oceans of Vanuatu! Wow! Always so exciting to wake up in the morning to a new place, especially when you arrive in pitch black and can’t see a thing, and the next morning you open your balcony door and see this view!
We wandered into town, to stretch our legs and stocked up on drinks before heading to our island digs for the next 10 nights. A free ferry that runs 24/7 everyday transported us and all our luggage over to the island. The sun was hot, the skies were blue and we were ready for the holiday to begin. The views did not disappoint!
Our holiday wasn’t all perfect {although it may appear that way when looking at my Instagram account!} but with all travels; we had lessons to learn and some bumps in the road along the way and yet I still felt gratitude. I was grateful we could get away and have this special time together, just the three of us. Also grateful to have these amazing blue waters surrounding me, calming me.
The positives of the holiday and the memories that I’ll hold onto forever are the happy times; the days at the beach where you found your love of the ocean and water, forgetting about time and building sandcastles on the beach late into the afternoon and playing with your construction vehicles in the sand. Getting messy. These are the things I LOVED.
We created a new routine in a new place and you loved it, Seb. We had two playgrounds that we frequented, the one at the resort, which we went to most days, late in the afternoons at sunset time. Such a lovely way to end the day.
The other playground was on the water front of Port Vila, so we’d get the ferry over to Port Vila town and head to the playground, where you made friends easily with local children. You just loved this time to play and I loved to just sit back and watch you having fun.
Vanuatu really was a little piece of paradise for me; healing my heart and soul in the crystal clear waters of the ocean, grounding my feet on the sand at the beach and freeing my mind. Just having that time and space to forget my worries, even if just for a little while.
All in all we had a great holiday, Seb, and one month after returning home, you are still talking about Vanuatu and asking to go back on the ferry and go to the playground. You miss the fun times at the beach, catching ferries to go to the supermarket, watching the cruise ships and cargo ships go by, golf buggy rides around the island, sunset walks and plays at the playground and having your Mama and Dada by your side 24/7. Just know this, Sebby, that I miss all of that too and I’ll hold tight to the memories made in Vanuatu until our next adventure.
We returned home from Vanuatu after circling Melbourne in the sky for over one hour due to the smoke haze. As we landed in Melbourne we hit Melbourne’s most hazardous air pollution, the worst in the world at that time. Reality kicked in like a kick in the guts. We were home, Australia was still on fire, and I would have loved to have escaped on a flight straight out of here again but it was time for home. You were missing home, my little man.
On our return, it felt like we hit the ground running; I had work emails coming in for me and we only had a few days to organise ourselves before the start of Four year old Kindergarten for you. Kindergarten is a whole other story, one that I will save for the next letter I write to you.
Sebby, it’s a new year and we’ve certainly had some adventures in the first month of this year 2020. Vanuatu – tick! I can’t wait to see what else 2020 may have waiting for us!
Love always and forever my Sebby.
Love Mama xxx
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