Our Grand Adventure

---

Sunday, 13 June 2010

We started planning our trip a year ago, when we learned that my husband Russel’s niece would be getting married next Wednesday in Haifa, Israel. As soon as we were able, we booked five tickets to Tel Aviv, and returning with stops in London and Bangkok, using frequent flyer miles - we saw it as a very good sign that we could book all the flights we required, on the exact dates that we wanted, for all five of us. Over the ensuing months we researched accommodation options for the six destinations we had decided on: Haifa, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, London, Paris and just to finish on a note of rest and relaxation, Club Med in Phuket.
Which is why I am currently sitting on an aeroplane for the final two hours of a 36 hour journey from Sydney to Tel Aviv, via Bangkok and London. With me are Russel and our three boys, Ryan, age 13, Greg, age 9 and Dean, age 3. On this last leg of our trip is also my brother-in-law, who took a different flight from Sydney. We are, with a number of other family members who live in other parts of the world, converging on Haifa for the big event.
The flight is incredibly long. And incredibly uncomfortable. Some of us seem to be affected more by air travel than others - i suspect it’s part of our physiology, as i don’t believe our bodies are designed for an altitude of 11887 metres - motion sickness, stuffy nose, bloated stomach are just a few of the effects on me. So at regular intervals I have been popping various pills to counter these afflictions.
Three year olds have a different method of coping with the side effects of air travel. “Daddy, are we allowed to fart on the aeroplane?” was one of the first of many questions from Dean. And boy, did he! Apart from all the false “I need to make a poo!” alarms and resultant embarrassing queue jumping because a three year old might just not be able to hold it in.
The lack of sleep has also had a significant impact. But that goes for all of us. But he hasn’t quite latched onto the fact that the rest of the passengers on the plane don’t actually want to hear his cries of frustration whenever one of his matchbox cars falls of the tray table and one of us has to go a-hunting for it - again. One of his little dinosaurs fell to the floor and couldn’t be found, resulting in much crying (loudly) when he wanted to tell a dinosaur story and found that one was missing. The eight remaining dinosaurs were just not good enough.
The two older boys have been a pleasure. They even ate the aeroplane food (well some of it), which is quite an accomplishment in itself. They have been surprisingly well behaved and good natured, and have hardly argued. If they can keep that up throughout the next five weeks, we may even have an enjoyable holiday after all! As you can gather, their normal brotherly behaviour is to bicker and argue and annoy each other most of the time. This was the most troublesome issue for Russel and I when planning our trip - we consider it the major ‘make-or-break’ factor.
So we are now one hour away from Tel Aviv. It feels as if we have been travelling forever. And even though it turned out better than expected, i just can’t wait to get off this plane!

---