Sydney

We drove to Dulles airport on Monday afternoon and arrived with plenty of time to make our flight.  Good thing because we hit a bump while trying to check in.  Somehow, Sam's passport was not eletronically linked to our visa paperwork.  Jay did have a paper copy, but it involved the desk lady making lots of copies and phone calls.  After about 45 minutes, we were checked in and on our way to the gate.  I had trouble at security because my bra had an underwire and my jeans had rivets.  I had to have a more extensive search which involved lots of pat downs, wands and more from the nice security lady.  No real problem though, just lots of questions from the kids about what was going on. 
When we got ready to board the flight, we noticed that Jay, Tom and Sam had been upgraded to first class while Joe and I were still business class.  Jay said that the kids didn't really seem welcome up in first, while Joe and I had a really nice flight back in business class.  Joe was the only one of the kids to sleep on the plane.  The first flight was right around 5 hours. 
In San Francisco, we hung out in the business class lounge for our layover time.  They have free juice, tea, coffee, water, and light snacks.  We all had some veggies, fruit, cheese and jucie while waited.
We ran into another snag as we tried to board our flight.  Still the same problem with Sam's passport.  This time, the lady behind the desk actually fixed the problem. 
For our international flight, we were all in business class.  We had 4 in one row and one in the row behind.  Jay was in the row behind and happened to be sitting on the end.  I was at the other end of the row of 4.  All three kids were asleep before we even took off.  Once we were up to cruising, I pushed the kids' buttons and made their seats into beds.  They slept for a very long time then watched tv and movies for the last 4 hours of the flight.  Over all, we had a really good flight. 
We breezed through customs and immigration once we arrived in Sydney.  The biggest problem was the sheer mountain of luggage that had to be x-rayed and scanned.  We had 10 checked bags, 1 stroller, 4 backpacks, 2 laptop (with bags) and one small rolling carry-on.  So that took some time to get it unloaded from the carts and the reloaded. 
We fully loaded our rental car and then spent about an hour trying to go the 4 miles to the hotel.  We had trouble getting oriented the right way and lots of time going the wrong way.
We spent our day walking and seeing some sights.  We walked about 25 minutes from our hotel in order to see the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge.  We ate lunch and then rode the ferry around to Darling Harbour.  Sydney Wildlife World and the Sydney Aquarium at located there.  The Wildlife World was really well put together and was very cool.  The whole building only has animals that live in Australia.  We got to see some extremely large walking stick bugs, bull ants, many spiders (including the two venomous ones, the redback and the funnel web), lots of snakes (including the top two venomous ones in the world which both live here in Australia), wombats, kangaroos, wallabys, koalas, and one really giant crocodile.  The croc exhibit was really cool because we were able to go down and see him from the side of his home which was underwater.  It was neat to watch him move up and down through the water.  He was about 16 and a half feet long.  We really like it. 

We then went next door to the aquarium.  There were several school groups that started going through at about the same time we did so it was a bit crowded.  There were some really great things about this aquarium.  They have two large tanks that have underwater tunnels in them.  One tank had the dugones in them and one had sharks and rays.  It was really awesome to watch these animals swim above us and beside us. 

The Aquarium also has a very large Great Barrier Reef tank.  We got to see this tank from lots of different angles and places and then at the end, there is a large viewing window and steps to sit on.  We got to sit for about 10 minutes before all the school kids crowded in and we left.  It was neat because we got to see deep into the tank for this window. 

After the aquarium, we rode the monorail back to our hotel and called it a day.  The kids had baths and were asleep by 5:15.  Jay and I were probably asleep by 5:30.  We didn't get any dinner and that has become a problem this morning.  Poor Sam's tummy was so empty, he started throwing up this morning around 5:30.  We took him to breakfast at breakfast time, and he plowed in his waffle only to throw up on the table.  We had to make him slow down and start with just some toast.  Joe, Tom and I finished and came upstairs 30 minutes ago, while Sam was slowly making his way through his toast.  Since Jay and Sam are still downstairs, I am hoping that means Sam was able to eat some more.