I would have never thought that we get this far.

The last year has most certainly been the most stressful, adventurous, eventful and exciting time of my life. Right now I’m feeling exhausted but also thrilled to my finger tips.

In the first half of 2007 Michael took part in a professional development program and had to create quite an enormous portfolio of his work as a teacher, he also started a new job (alongside his existing one) and we had our third child born (with the first not even 3.5 years old). That has certainly been a push getting through but we managed and then just as things were calming down and little M started sleeping through the night, Michael got a job offer in Germany and we started to pack up.

From the day Michael got the offer to when we left our house in the Blue Mountains it was only 7 weeks and then we had another 7 weeks living in Sydney with Michael’s parents (thank you L&D for taking us in, looking after us and making all this possible for us!!). And now over 800 ticked to-do items and 36 hours of airports and planes later we’re here.

So let me tell you about the herculean effort of flying with three children under 5 from Australia to Germany as well.

Leaving Sydney our plane had a 3.5 hour delay, which meant the kids were tired and hungry getting onto the plane already. But they enjoyed their first meal on the plane and actually slept a little afterwards. Though big M felt motion sick with the changing air pressure, middle E couldn’t quite get comfortable with her head flopping forward all the time and little M cried and slept intermittently.

We arrived at Singapore feeling hopeful. Here we had to totally empty the plane for another security check, which meant that we had to wake little M, who’d only just managed to get back to sleep during landing, take the girls, our five pieces of hand luggage and the two car seats, that the children were sitting on of the plane and make our way through the customs check. Luckily a very nice Singaporean officer spotted us and helped us carry our stuff and got us to the top of the line (we had to learn to accept help very quickly on this trip). An hour-and-a-half later we were back on the plane but little M was desperately hungry and tired by now. I had to strap him into his chair for lift-off only to have him scream like I have not heard him before. Sitting right next to him that was too much to bear and so the two of us had a good cry together. In the end we defied all safety regulations and I breastfed the little guy during lift-off for the mental and emotional safety of myself and the other passengers on board.

Luckily I took my GP’s advise and had a mild sedative just for this sort of scenario so I gave the little boy a dose of that and he managed to sleep a few hours peacefully. The rest of the flight to London went pretty well all things considered. The girls made good use of the in-flight entertainment and little M was happy to coo at other passengers, when they weren’t sleeping.

By the time we arrived in London we had missed our connecting flight from London to Berlin and had no idea where to go. We had to change terminals by bus all the while carrying the five suitcases of hand luggage, the two car seats and little M with just our four hands. Not having a hand free to hold E’s hand she was a little like a sheep who had us running around the back of her pushing her in the right direction and us rounding her up like a sheep dog.

Having made it to the right terminal Michael found us a few seats to sit, while he went to find out where we should go for a connecting flight. Not knowing where he was off to or how long he’d be I tried to make the most of waiting around with the children while Michael had to wait in a cue for 45 minutes only to be told that he can make a run for the next plane but they certainly would not be waiting for us. After that we were just like two totally ridiculous looking chooks without heads. Michael raced ahead to try and stop the plane pulling, pushing, carrying four of the hand luggages stopping every ten metres to change hands. And I followed having little M in a sling and carrying one car seat in each hand the girls straddling behind me, big M pulling her trolley and E dreaming and singing away. We had to run like this for over a kilometre through Heathrow Airport with not a single baggage trolley in sight. But we did make it to our gate just as they were boarding the plane.

We felt so indescribably relieved to be sitting on this plane, the last one we were to catch for a while, only to realise that our luggage probably won’t have made it onto this plane. It was to take us another couple of days before all of us would have their clothes. But we’ve been managing really well. We were welcomed by my family ready to help out in any way they possibly could. And so we were driven to our furnished unit (which is to be our home for the next 4 weeks) and fed with a hot meal.

Currently we are counting day 3 of our German adventure and we have been incredibly busy and productive already. We have registered with the local authorities, applied for a new ID-card, did an emergency shopping trip to IKEA, signed Michael’s work contract, made an appointment with the aliens office, went exploring the nearby Schlosspark and did multiple trips to any of the various supermarkets in walking distance of our unit. The other morning Michael (and little M) were seen like this dashing out quickly to get some cereal for breakfast … it’s quite nice to be living right in the city. Though I might still change my mind about that one so stay posted for more about our German adventure.