As Ash has said, we are here. The flight was a bit ardous at the end but we were very proud of Sam and his in-flight performance. Other than loosing our bags and a 30 minute international connection in San Fran everything went well. Our hotel is pretty swank, thanks to ol'Capital One for the room. It has been nice having such a luxury after a 30 hour door to door trip.

Check out Sam's thoughts on the room;

Room has a great view too:

After checking in and we headed off to Hyde Park for a look around and to get some sun. According to Ashley getting sun during your first couple hours on the ground helps with jet lag. We spent the rest of the afternoon getting some lunch, and trying to sort out the Aussie pre-paid cell phone thing. I had read that simply putting a prepaid SIM card in your existing cell phone was cheaper and easier than skype and all that stuff. Proved to be a lot more complex than the ol'internet explained. We ended up just buying a throw-away, so we have a local number for Grannie to call and for us to coordinate hotels and the like.

After some naps we got out and about. We caught the monorail over to Darling Harbor, we had heard of a pretty cool playground and thought this would be a good way to run Sam down a little. Of course he had a blast. Afterwards we went and grabbed some grub at Darling Harbor, which reminded me of Baltimore's inner-harbour. Very pretty and well done but a little touristy, the food wasn't great but we still had a great time walking around.

We all woke up pretty early this morning, around 4. Actually this is really only an hour before Sam normally wakes up anyway. We had showers and had to wait around a little for the breakfast room to open. Our room comes with breakfast, which is great; Sam ate his weight in fresh pineapple and croissants.
Afterwards, we headed over to the Central Rail station and bought a week long pass for all the trains, ferries and busses. The public transport system is remarkable over here, very clean and almost German in it’s efficiency. I heard a PA announcer apologizing for a train being three minutes late. The system is also fairly cheap, we can ride anything all day long for about $20 USD. Even Sam thought the Ferry was a great deal:

We took the train to the Circular Quay and headed by Ferry to the Taronga Zoo. Beautiful ride over and one of the cheapest ways to see all the sights by boat.

The zoo however, was not cheap. But one can see where your money goes once inside, it makes the National Zoo look like a joke. Sam enjoyed himself and really liked the Crocodile display and the Zebras which we heard about all afternoon.
We grabbed some cheapo sandwiches on the street and headed back to the hotel for a snooze. Some of us had an easier time waking up than others! But little Sam has to been given credit, he is doing remarkably well for being 2.5 yrs old and 14 hours out of his time zone.
After we got him rallied, we met up with Ashley’s Uncle Brat and his daughter for some grub in Chinatown. Very good stuff. Now we are back at the hotel, Sam is fast asleep in our bed and I imagine Ash will be as well when I get back down to the room.