Let’s jump in the 4×4 and go…

I was reading some comments on a facebook page about caravanning and camping and saw a comment that was to shock me and figuratively slap me in the face. The post was from a man who told the story of a friend of theirs who’s daughter became very sick and lost the battle with an aggressive cancer, the girl was only around 8 years old. This really hit home for me as I have a daughter who at the time of reading the post was 8 years old. He then went on to explain that he and his wife were working extremely hard to pay the mortgage and other bills. They were putting their two children into before school care and after school care, they picked up the children in the late afternoon, then cooked tea before sending them to bed to do it all again the next day. They really didn’t have time to spend with their children, however he came to the realisation that his friends would give their whole lives, their house, cars, every material thing in their life just to spend another minute with the daughter who had passed away.

This was the literal slap in the face for me! 

We were doing the same thing. We were putting our two young children into before and after school care. Then when they got home, we would be to busy cooking dinner or trying to relax ourselves. We didn’t have time to play with the kids until the weekend, and by that time, we had to mow the lawns, clean the house, paint the verandah, blah blah blah!

So we made the decision to give it all up, to spend 12+ months with our children!!! We will sell the house, store most of the furniture, sell the rest and take off. We have a good capable 4×4 and have a 17ft pop top caravan, and we will make the rest up as we go.

We plan to start from our hometown, and head North if it’s Winter or South if it’s Summer, as for the rest, we’ll let you know. We have been talking to people and listening for their recommendations on where to go or what to see. However, we have a list of places that we are going to see!!!

This trip will be challenging, difficult, emotional and expensive. However we don’t think that life was about working to pay off a house and then enjoying your life. We will enjoy our life and worry about the money later!

We are super excited to be able to spend time with the kids and see this beautiful country, and not having to worry about the mortgage and bills etc. We have our youth and each other and if it all fails, we will have the best memories that we could possibly have made!

When/if we come back here we can always buy another house, but you can never buy time or memories!