In 4 days we are heading to New York and Florida for a 3 week holiday!

The kids are itching to go on a plane ride, The Hubby is counting down the days till he visits the Apple store and im looking forward to… well… everything! Ive been doing a bit of online window shopping and have a (multi paged) list of stores i’d like to visit from chain stores that are yet to hit the Aussie shores to flea markets. We love to visit museums and Manhattan is bursting with them, luckily the kids are just as curious and interested as us. The Hayden Planetarium is going to be a revelation for Nicholas who is our budding astronomer and Alexander is going to loosehis mind in FAO Schwartz! He’s already making a mental list of all the Ben10 toys he’d like to collect!

Im going to climb up to the crown the Statue of Liberty too! This will be my third trip to Manhattan, but the first time im taking the family. I travelled solo to NY in 1998- the World Trade Centres were still standing and the city was naive to terrorists and rampant security. I opted not to visit the Statue then, as i was 19 and the thought of joining the herd of tourists to partake in a cliched task was a joke in my young mind. Then a few years later i woke up in Sydney to watch the World Trade Centers on fire and the entire city go into a state of panic and loss. We had visited the WTC’s in the early 90’s with my parents and sister and posed for photos from the top of Tower 1- over looking the entire city. Those photos are very treasured now. Access to the statue was closed to the public for a long time and i remember feeling so disappointed that i’d missed my chance to climb to the top. A few months ago a friend reminded me that the public was allowed to climb to the crown of the statue again and i hastily booked my ticket, as daily ticket numbers are limited.

Im looking forward to climbing the 354 steps to the top, this time i wont miss my chance.