I just made the booking and am now holding a one way ticket to Europe for July 2018 in my hand. After living in Australia for just over three years we will move back to Europe. This now makes it very definite and I am going through it with mixed emotions.
It is great that after all the Skype contact we will finally be able to see and hold family and European friends again. On the other hand we will have to leave behind good friends that have started to feel like family. Bye bye to spontaneous dinners and hello to planing our social lives weeks if not months ahead. Farewell long summers, looking forward to a cold Christmas. Contradictions? Contradictions!
So now the questions arise, where do we find a school and where are we going to live? Are we going to rent or buy? What are we going to do with all our belongings? What do we still want to do in Australia? And our blog, what will happen to our blog?
It almost feels like I have more questions now then when we moved to Australia , even though we are moving to a familiar country now.
We collected many memories in Australia.
Kai and Luka went from an insecure start at a new school when they did not even speak the language, to being fluent in Aussie now.
All of a sudden the list of ‘the last time’ is starting to grow every day. And we are not even done with our 38 things we want to do in Australia yet…
I am sure we will find answers and solutions to everything that arises, at the moment they are all still questions though…
europe2australia.com 
Hi. I have just found your blog and it is a great insight into the experience. Myself, my husband and 6 year old son are actually in the process of coming to the Netherlands (Groningen) for 2-3 years from Australia. The opposite of your trip. If all goes to plan we would be coming in aAugust next year. I was wondering if there was any advice you could give us in regards to settling into life and school over there. Any tips would be much appreciated.
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Hi Chloe, thanks for the compliment. It is a great adventure that you’ll be going on! Settling into life in the Netherlands will be similar to our experience I guess. Best advise I can give would probably be to not be afraid to step out of your comfort zone, say yes to every opportunity and see things as different (rather than better or worse). Try to get involved with school activities as much as you can, as it is a great way of getting to know how school works and to get to know other people. If you have specific questions regarding school or life in the Netherlands feel free to send us an e-mail on europe2australia@gmail.com. We might even meet in the Netherlands (although Groningen is far away, according to Dutch standards)!
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Wow. I have read and followed your blog for sometime. I have read about the transition of your kids especially in integrating into Aussie life at school. If you don’t mind explaining, why the move back to Europe?
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Hi Henry, thanks for asking. I guess that is a whole new blog post again. In short, we only planned to stay in Australia for two years, so we are already ‘a year over date’. I know many people say that and end up living in Australia for the rest of their lives. It is easy to understand why that happens. I guess we are just different?
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In der Südsee haben wir euren Entschluss gelesen. Ich denke, Ihr habt das gut bedacht. Ach so, wir sind in Nuka Hiva. Französisch Polynesien!
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Wow, dat zal inderdaad ‘mixed emotions’ opleveren…
Weer een heel proces om doorheen te moeten gaan. 😉
Succes met alle nieuwe overwegingen en beslissingen de komende maanden!!
(Wel heerlijk dat jullie weer terugkomen 😘)
Xx Susan
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Dankjewel Susan! Nog genoeg tijd voor de planning van het volgende vriendenweekend lijkt me!
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inderdaad genoeg tijd om te plannen… zei je niet zoiets in de blog!! weken zo niet maanden van te voren plannen.. Dus wanneer kunnen we gaan op vriendenweekend?? ik snap de gemengde gevoelens maar ook ik ben blij dat jullie terug komen!
Groetjes Suzan
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