And so it begins

So the day has finally arrived - 15 months in the planning and with several hiccups along the way including one potential show stopper it is finally happening.
The taxi picked us up from Rora and we were on our way to Aberdeen Airport - after a minor hiatus of leaving Camerons car seat in the taxi (soon rectified by a quick phone call to the driver) we were through checkin and after a tearful goodbye to Mollie and Poppet (aka my aunt and my mum) we were boarding.
The flight was grand and was on time and barely 90 minutes later we were landing at Heathrows T5. We managed to meet up with big sis for lunchin T3 - although it was a close run thing as we almost got stuck airside! We then had a sixish hour wait in the terminal (with regular updates on the Rugby - well done Wales and nice one England; surely they have to give Lancaster the job now). Apart from the frequent questions as to how much longer it was until we boarded it passed quickly with mounting excitement from everyone.
We finally boarded our A380 and waited for take off, and waited and waited... Thanks to big sis number 2 we knew there was nothing wrong with the engines (very useful having family working at Rolls Royce on the big aircraft engines!) in fact the sky bridge would not retract!
A short delay later the bridge retracted and we were off on our big adventure.
The flight was as you would expect - long and boring. In the words of cameon it was just like being in the stmach of a bird, great to see the birdy side of thr family is starting to sink in!! The journey went smoothly apart from some minor turbulence in the last 40 minutes which coupled with lack of sleep made Hamish throw up, although he was soon back to his cheerful self.
Watching the landing on the onnboard Skycam was great - the night take off at heathrow was less spectacular.
I am typing this in lounge D35 waiting for our last flight of the day a five hour hop to Darwin. Am looking forward to landing although less so the customs side of things as everyone is tired and slightly grumpy!
I will post again at some stage from the otherside...