After weeks and months of planning we finally took off from home today for our holiday to the US. It was a day full of final packing, cleaning and getting the house ready to leave. Finally after school we were on the road to Sydney.

We are staying at a hotel near the international airport and we arrived just in time for dinner at a local Japanese restaurant. The drive was uneventful and the hotel spacious, and perfect for our needs. Thomas and Emily particularly enjoyed watching the planes take off all morning.

After breakfast we headed out to the airport and check in was a breeze and then we wandered the airport till it was time to depart.

We are flying ANA from Sydney to LAX Tokyo, which means its about 20 hours of flying time with a 3 hour stopover in Tokyo. The kids all stayed up and watched movies for the first leg and we all had a good sleep on the second leg.

The arrival process in the US was quite quick and our luggage arrived by the time we made it through Customs and Immigration. There was a bit of a wait for our car to arrive but when it did the kids were impressed with its size and internal led lighting.