Trip home - Part 1

By 3pm we were at the airport and doing what many South African's do when they fly to and from SA - wrap their luggage.

Then we enjoyed some delicious milkshakes. Oreo cookies, kit kat and peperment crisp. Yummyyyy.

It was nice to get to sit and chat for a little after our baggage had been checked in. 
Hannah was full of energy though. Thankfully her and Oupa had a lovely time playing together.
Hezekiah noticed the television and I remembered taking a photo of Rachel sitting on my Dad's lap watching a TV in a reasturant on our way to Cape Town with them when she was just 2 or 3 months old. So Rachel suggested I get a photo. Unfortunately Hezekiah had looked away already - so Rachel encouraged him to look again. :-)
We were not too sure how long the walk to our gate would be (and Hannah needed to burn off the extra sugar from the milk shake) so we started to make our way. I noticed a glass elevator and so the girls and I quickly went for a ride and and down in that too - just a pity we did not get a photo. They really enjoyed being able to "see" what the lift was doing.
It was a very teary goodbye but we tried to not let it drag on too much. Thankfully once we were through there were enough shops to distract the girls and their excitement about the flight could help them to forget the sadness of the goodbyes. This "statue" of Nelson Mandela had been made of wire and beads. Amazing.

Thankfully we did not have to rush down to the gate. Hezekiah was pleased to be able to be on the floor for a little while.

We had just got ourselves settled when they allowed "families with children under 2" to come forward. This allowed us more seats and a better view. In the main section Brendon and I had actually moved a big bentch that was badly positions (no one could really use it) but as soon as we had moved it out a couple came and sat down. So I was rather glad to have seats for us all in this check in section.

We had a great view of the plane we would be traveling on as well as some of the runway and other airplanes. The girls had no idea from the road that the airport was this big.

I did not take many photos in the plane on the way to SA - so I took a few more on the way home.

The one major advantage to leaving in the late afternoon is that you have dinner and then your body says "it's night time". So although the girls enjoyed a bit of TV - they all fell asleep and slept for many hours. The younger two girls slept for most of the flight. Brendon, Hezekiah and I all did really well too - getting far more sleep than on the first trip.