Finally.... I get to spend some quality time with my boys in the school holidays

It only took till the last two days of the holidays. Well actually, I did manage to take them to a movie on the first weekend, but since then, it's been work work work for me, a few playdates with friends, and a lot of TV, Wii and jumping on the trampoline in between for them.

On Thursday night, I took them to see 'Real Steel' - the Hugh Jackman movie about boxing robots. I was not too excited about seeing it, as I'm not really into boxing and robots ain't my thing, but I thought - 'No, this is for the boys, and this is what they want to do.' So we went - and I loved it!! There was a very cool 11 year old boy in the film who is originally rejected by his father (Hugh Jackman), but has the courage to make a stance and tell him that he is going with his Dad on the road to fight the boxing robots. As we only had 20 minutes before the movie started at 6.30pm, I grabbed a bowl of chips from the local Deli to take us through to the end of the movie, which was actually quite long (2 hours 7 minutes + previews). After the movie, we went to see if the local fish n chip shop was still open, but it wasn't, so we went back to the Deli and grabbed some normal dinner and talked about how cool the movie was.

On Wednesday, it was looking like I could have a 'free-from-work' day on Friday to spend with the boys. I asked them what they wanted to do and the choice was mini-golf. At 5.30pm Thursday, I get a last minute job to see for Friday (which annoyed me to no end), but I managed to make the appointment time for 7.45am, and had it written up by 9.15am, so I could dedicate some more time to the boys. But then I had accounts to do, approvals to get and appointments to make for next week, taking me to close to midday before I was finished.

I wanted to find a new place for mini-golf, so I went to the internet and discovered 'glow in the dark' mini golf in the Docklands. Why not? A little adventure into a part of the city we've never ventured before. We jumped on a bus that took us to Moorabbin train station rather than our normal Sandringham line, grabbed a toasted sandwich at the station kiosk, and jumped on the train to the city. It was a little bit of a walk to the Docklands from Southern Cross station, but it was nice spotting the marble seagull, the spotted cow in the tree and the luxury boats on the waterfront.

We couldn't believe how quiet the Docklands were. It was like a ghost town of shops trying to stay open. We eventually found our way to Harbourtown, where Black Light Mini Golf can be found on the first level. They had a distinctive Australian theme of the Barrier Reef, an outback dunny, a rusted up Kingswood and the rainforests, to name a few. The putters and golf balls glowed, as did our clothes and plenty of the obstacles. There were 'spinners' on some of the holes that allowed you to get advantages over your opponents, but also disadvantages... here is Kurtis taking advantage of blocking Nick on the obstacle course around the snake.

This outback outhouse has a peeking hole and some funny sound effects.

The beaten up Kingswood somehow takes your ball, but gives it back to you.

So it was a fun adventure, where somehow I lost the game and Kurtis won a handsome defeat.

We then walked around Harbourtown looking at some of the shops and grabbed a milkshake, before setting off home on a pre-peak hour train. 

So, that was our time together... I just wish I could give them more.