Today as we wake up it is our last day in Paris , we are sad to leave but also excited to go home & see our loved ones especially as we have been gone over 7 weeks. We are pretty much packed to leave ( we get picked up at 6 pm tonight by our taxi) . The Hiltons are showered & out the apartment door by 9 am & we cruise up the road to the cafe next to the Arc De Triomphe so we can have a hot cooked breakfast on our final day here in Paris. Once finished we go & line up to get our tickets to walk up the Arc De Triomphe all 284 steps of them. We are excited & it's a fine end to our wonderful stay here in Paris. It's not a hard walk up at all & as we reach the top it's amazing, you can see for kilometres , it's quiet breathtaking, whilst up top I try to ring the family in Australia but it cuts in & out. We take heaps of photos walk around the top a couple of times then decide to walk down. We message the Fogartys & let them know where we are as they didn't want to do the hot breaky or the walk up the Arc so we decided we will meet throughout the day.
We then walk down the Champs Elyssees to do some last minute shopping. This street is massive & before we know it, it's after 1.30 pm so we just grab something on the run to eat. As our shopping comes to an end we head back to the apartment to have a shower & get ready to lock the suitcases up for the big journey home . The flight back will be huge. 7 hours from Paris to Dubai then a 4 hour stop over then another 13 hours from Dubai to Sydney.. Elye & I are both feeling very unwell with the flu so I'm positive it's going to be a long & awful flight for the both of us. By the time we do our final checks in the apartment Anatole ( our French guy who's in charge of our apartment) takes a final run through of the apartment to check us out, then we take all the luggage downstairs & wait for our 2 taxis. The drivers pack our luggage in the cars with ease & we are off on the 45 minute drive to Charles de Gaulle international airport. We are all hungry so we will eat there. We line up to check in our luggage , get our boarding passes, go through customs & the scanners & go up to duty free to find a resturant or somewhere to eat, but there really isn't anywhere & we are starved. The boys all start looking as Jeni & I forgot to get stamps on our tax receipts to get our euro tax back , so we have to go all the way back down to the front doors & start all over again. 30 minutes later we are back & the boys are eating potato chips & mark is heating up pasta for Connor & Elye.
They call everyone to go onboard the plane. We find our seats & try to get comfortable ( if you can as we are on the 777 not the A380 which is bigger) soon after take off our meals are bought to us but we are so thirsty & haven't had a drink yet . Mark & Elye
Sleep but Connor & Myself stay awake watching movies, my head hurts anyway from my cold & I'm positive that I'm getting a sinus infection as the pain is becoming unbearable in my face.
Thank god we land & I feel awful, we disembark & make our way through to the transfer areas to get something to eat for breaky but there is really no breakfast food . Pot of tea & hot chocolates are 1st on the list then the boys have McDonald's , anything to fill them up I suppose, mark & I then get another coffee to try to fill us up. We cannot believe that no one has bacon/egg rolls or something like that. It's Unbelievable. We then walk down to the gate 202 & they call all children on which we all push through( this is the 1st time any of us have done this on our holiday but the way i feel i really don't care, Elye isn't well & we just want to get him on the plane & Connor was in a dead sleep & doesn't know where he is either, it has been an enormous holiday indeed.
We are now on the plane & up in the air dinner will be out soon I'm sure then it's off to sleep for the massive trip home ( massive & long I'm sure). Goodnight emirates flight EK 412.