Newstead House visit

We are in the second week of school holidays here.
I'm grateful for school holidays. 

I love the change of pace that happens.

We are a small family, yet life seems to roller coaster along and it feels like Mondays become Fridays become Sundays. Anyone else relate?

So school holidays is a chance to apply the brakes and live life a little slower. I'm very fortunate in the fact that I can work around the school holidays. My employer offers a reduced working year scheme where I am able to buy additional days of leave and it means that I then get to spend the precious school holidays with my girl. I am so appreciative of this opportunity as it takes away a lot of the working mother stress and guilt. It also means that I get a break every few months - which is obviously rather nice!

I have mentioned before that we have a 'We should..' box. (blog post HERE). In this box we write down ideas for days out or activities that we want to do. One of the ideas that's been in there for a little while was 'take a trip to Newstead House. So these school holidays we earmarked a day and set off.

Newstead House back veranda and a picnic lunch in the gardens

Newstead House  (website - HERE) is located on the Brisbane river and dates back to 1846. It is  the oldest residential property in the area, which makes me realise how new Brisbane is.

It is filled with furniture and memorabilia from a by gone age and is a truly fascinating and beautiful house.

Newstead House - Morning Room, Dining Room and Drawing Room

As we wandered through the place the lovely gentleman that greeted us at the door came for a bit of a chat. At that point Sibs and I were admiring the drawing room with the gorgeous china tea set and demi grand. The conversation moved to the piano and he asked if either of us played....

Next thing he had lifted the rope that protected visitors from walking within the rooms and invited Sibs to have a play. She wasn't hesitant at all and made herself quite at home.

Newstead House - Sibs playing the Demi Grand Piano

Her repertoire was restricted to the current pieces that she is learning so in these majestic and formal surroundings she played.....'One Direction - You don't know you're beautiful' , followed by 'The Entertainer' and topped off with 'Coldplay - Clocks'!

By this time a few people had gathered and some tourists began to take photos! One man asked if she could play him some Beethoven. She had already exhausted her playing from memory and the only other music she could remember was chopsticks (!) so I got to take the seat and managed to play most of 'Moonlight Sonata'. I wasn't as comfortable as Sibs was with an audience....

It made a morning admiring a lovely house into a memorable occasion.

We always have to sign a visitors book

Newstead House, Brisbane

We've been ticking off quite a few things from our 'We should..' box this last week. I really should try and find the time to record our adventures. 

Just on another note, I seem to have been having a few issues with funny messages appearing on opening of my blog. I have removed the instagram button on the sidebar as this seemed to be the culprit and that should now be all good and safe - fingers crossed.