Unable to sleep, I have just been reading about the couple who died while swimming off the WA coast while their children were on the shore. An avid blogger, the mum was planning to write about her family’s road trip around Australia this year. She wrote “each member of the family will use this year away to achieve some interesting goals — it is really a family sabbatical in that sense — one definition of sabbatical “A period of leave [used] for rest, study or travel. … usually taken for reasons of personal development”. We will all be using the year for some personal development as well as family time.”

I cannot fathom what those children and their extended family are going through right now 😦 it makes me want to hug my family a little tighter and certainly appreciate each day I am given. I haven’t thought too much about the purpose of our trip until now, except to enjoy the “trip of a lifetime”. I like the definition above of a family sabbatical. A friend of a friend, Luke Z, described it best for me when he talked about the quality family time we would have to invest in each other and invest in life experiences along the way. Family time and personal development have moved ahead of visiting Disneyland on my to-do list…