A Rainy Weekend in Melbourne

We had a quick trip to Melbourne on the weekend to meet a new niece / cousin and play tourist!

But before that, I had 24 hours away from the kids to accompany my mum to see her old school friend perform with Andre Rieu!

We had fabulous seats, in the middle of Centre Court at Rod Laver Arena...

...and Mum got to catch up with Gary (although it was brief and the whole time he was being hounded for photos by adoring fans).

It was a great concert and we enjoyed ourselves but I really don't understand the mass-hysteria surrounding Andre.  Nanna's screaming in adoration of Andre, much as a 13-year old girl might do for Justin Beiber - quite surreal!

Trev bought the kids over the following day so I managed an afternoon of shopping at one of the big DFO's and was very pleased to have found a good raincoat for Kelvin - otherwise he would have been very wet over the weekend!!

New raincoat from Kathmandu, grumpy face is models own!!

We stayed in a great hotel off St Kilda Road - can highly recommend it and if you book far anough in advance you can get great room rates.  It's away from the inner city hustle and bustle, close to the Botanical Gardens should energy need to be expended by little ones, right on a busy tram line and the comfy rooms included a little kitchenette.  The only thing we'd do differently next time would be avoiding the cafe at breakfast time - the business suits did not appreciate hungry hypo pre-schoolers!!  Needless to say, Weetbix and milk were purchased for consumption in our room and everyone was happy.

Mirrors on the ceiling of the lift provided entertainment everytime!

We met our new niece / cousin, Maisie.

Caught lots of trams.

Went to the Zoo in the rain.

And had pasta on Lygon Street.

We also got to catch up with Pa (my Dad) but didn't really manage any decent photos!

It was a fun weekend and despite the weather I don't think we'd have done anything differently if the sun had been out.  I love Melbourne as a place to visit but I also love being home and we lapped up the sunshine on Sunday once we were home.