Trip to Sydney

Over the July 1st long weekend, we decided to do a last minute getaway to Sydney. We figured it would be our last weekend away before the baby arrived, so we wanted to take advantage of it. We had big plans to do a whole pile of nothing while we were there. :-) It was to be a relaxing getaway, and I think we were very successful in catching up on some much needed Zzzz's.

We left Canberra on Friday night after work and arrived in Sydney just after dinner.  Shortly afterwards, we checked into our hotel in Circular Quay and grabbed some food at a nearby asian fusion restaurant that we frequent when in the city. Afterwards, Stacy (being 8 months pregnant) settled in for the night, while Blair headed down to the Opera House cafe to meet up with some friends.

Saturday was a rainy day, so we decided to head to Bondi Junction to do some shopping. We wanted to check out the new Pottery Barn Baby and West Elm stores that had just opened, and walk around the super-sized Westfield shopping center.  Stacy was so excited to visit the Pottery Barn, but it turned out to be a bust! Since it was a new store at that time (the first PB in Australia in fact), they were still struggling with stock issues. Everything that Stacy wanted to buy was apparently 'on its way to Sydney in a boat in the middle of the ocean'. Sigh.

West Elm, on the other hand, ended up turning into a winner! We stumbled upon the perfect glider for the baby's nursery (we'd spent months looking for a modern glider that was also comfortable -- a near impossible task in the severely lacking consumer market here in Australia). Check it out below (note that it also came with a matching gliding footstool)!  Yeah...the task of finding this chair was so difficult and time consuming that it made it into our blog. Haha.

Saturday night saw us swimming in the hotel pool, watching a movie, and catching up on sleep. Exciting times!

On Sunday, we had High Coffee at our hotel booked in for 11 AM.  As we had been told this was quite the extensive 'meal', we planned on it being our breakfast + lunch for the day. Good idea! The amount of food we were given was incredible -- it took 3 hours to get through it all! And the best part? Just like pairing wine with meals, the barista paired coffees with our food. It was an amazing experience and we can't wait to do it again!

Coffee martini for Blair (I had OJ - boo!)

This was just the first course!

Following our High Coffee, we needed to walk the calories off. So we headed down to the Harbour and veered off towards the Rocks. We toured through the Sunday market and then ended up at Sticky, where we watched them make candy from scratch. Fun, and a great way to end the weekend!