After arriving at the Sydney Airport, we then proceeded to hop on the train to the city. The railway system in Sydney is awesome. You can take a train just about anywhere and it is fast and usually cheap. Also, you only pay for one child; the rest are free! And if there’s one thing my dad always taught me on family vacations, it’s the importance of saving a buck.
We walked the couple blocks from the train station to the hotel. We stayed the first few nights of our vacation in a skyscraper right in the city. It was beautiful and amazing. We ended up getting a three-bedroom serviced apartment. I’m pretty sure I could have lived there forever and ever. It was wonderful. Great views of the city, and there was even a grocery store in the main level of the building. (That was our first outing the night we arrived. I must say, being in a huge, fully stocked grocery store was almost worth the trip alone. You should have seen us gazing at the baked goods and produce and cuts of meat. We were like kids in a candy store!)
The first few days we spent exploring Darling Harbour. Sydney is extremely walkable… and we did LOTS of walking. The kids did great and the weather was wonderful – sunny and low 70s.
Darling Harbour houses Sydney Aquarium and Wildlife World, the Maritime Museum, and shopping, as well as providing us with our first taste of McDonald’s hamburgers in ten months. You can also charter a boat from here or eat at one of the many cafes and restaurants while taking in the views of the harbor.
Chinatown is also in the area and we were able to check that out a bit, as well as catching the view from Sydney Tower, Sydney’s tallest free-standing structure and the southern hemisphere’s second tallest observation tower.
We packed a lot in these first few days! Check out the picture here.