Sydney, Australia

We flew to Sydney for spring break.  It was such a fun trip.  It was surprising how familiar Sydney felt to DC.  We had a tour of sorts every day, and I feel we made the best of our time in Sydney.  We did a bike tour of Sydney, Taronga Zoo, we climbed the Sydney Harbour Bridge tower, Featherdale Wildlife Park, the town of Leura in the Blue Mountains, The Three Sisters, Scenic World with a rainforest, a ferry ride from the Sydney Olympic Park, Maritime Museum, Bondi Beach, Sydney Opera House, the town where the movie Babe was filmed, Macquarie Pass National Park, Fitzroy Falls, Bendeela Recreation Area (wild wombats and kangaroos), and Balmore Falls. In Sydney just a short walk from our hotel, the boys found an amazing playground where they could divert and dam up water. Probably their favorite part of the whole trip. Milton loves Emus. Milton got the closest to an Emu at the Featherdale Wildlife Park where we also got to pet wallaby's and kangaroos. Damon's spirit animal is a Tasmanian Devil because it wants to run continuously. The three rock spires is called the "Three Sisters" and has a rather interesting story surrounding it: https://www.bluemts.com.au/info/thingstodo/threesisters/ It was a very long journey as we had a 16 layover in Manila on the way over and then a 6-hour layover when returning. During the 16-hour layover, we left the airport and spent the day at the Mall of Asia, which included watching Snow White, going through an enormous Ikea store, and playing at all of the arcades.  The total travel time and cost were the same as if we had flown from the States.  

Here is Owen's description as per an assignment he completed in class about his spring break:

My spring break in Australia

Did you know Australia was a British colony, and that the British sent criminals to Australia for 7 to 14 years of hard labor? Today I'm going to talk about my spring break in Australia.  The three things we are going to talk about are Taronga Zoo, Bike tour, and wombat and kangaroo watching. Now let's get started.

Let's start with Taronga Zoo. How we got there is a ferry ride over to the zoo. What we saw in the Taronga Zoo were many creatures like an elephant, giraffe, seal, gorilla, monkey, Tasmanian devil, and a chicken. We also went to a bird show where we saw many cool birds like a condor, a vulture, and a chicken.

For the bike tour we started at Rocky Point. We went by the bridge, then we went to Darling Harbor, then the Botanical Gardens, and finally back to Rocky Point. On the tour we got rained on and saw cool views. The best view was the opera house.

We went to Bendeela to see wombats and kangaroos in the wild. We saw a joey, which is a baby kangaroo, and several wombats. We also saw a kangaroo fight. We also saw kangaroos and wombats eating grass.

Australia is a fun place to visit. I enjoyed Taronga Zoo, Bendeela Park, and Sydney by bike. I would like to see more of the country during a future visit there.