the holidays pics...

A few pics from our trip... we took about 7000 photos all up!

Tower Bridge from the Thames, London, EnglandView from the London Eye, EnglandStaircase in the Vatican, ItalyColosseum, Rome, Italy (one of our favourite places)Duomo (Cathedral) in Milan, ItalyLa Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, SpainTintern Abbey, WalesStonehenge, EnglandEiffel Tower, Paris, FranceAmsterdam, The Netherlands (one of my favourite photos, it was taken of a couple walking down an alley during the gay pride weekend... and all the bikes are very very Amsterdam!)Kölner Dom (Cathedral) of Cologne, GermanyKoblenz, GermanyCastle along the Rhine River, GermanyCastle along the Rhine River, GermanyWertheim, GermanyWurzburg, GermanyBamberg, GermanyNuremburg, GermanyRegensburg, GermanyPassau, GermanyCesky Krumlov, Czech RepublicMelk Abbey, Melk, AustriaDurnstein, AustriaVienna, AustriaBratislava, SlovakiaBudapest, Hungary

the land is titled...

5 weeks and 13 countries...

received an email from our conveyancer on august 18, our land is registered!!! woohoo!!!

hopefully it's full steam ahead when we return home, so there's no time for post-travel depression to kick in!!

the Europe trip...

A topic completely off the subject of building our house...

...tonight we're off to Dubai!!!

Our 5 week Europe adventure starts with a 24hr stop over in Dubai, before flying out to Budapest, via Vienna. Here we're boarding an APT river boat and cruising through Slovakia, Austria and Germany arriving in Amsterdam.

From Amsterdam we bus down to Paris, arriving on August 2nd (Erin's Mum's birthday) - and are meeting up with Erin's parents! 12 months since Erin's mum's battle with breast cancer started. So this stop will be a very emotional one!

After Paris we head to the UK on the Eurostar train, and hire a car then drive to Newbury, where friends Ash and Vicky are getting married on August 7th!

After spending some time celebrating with Ash and Vicky, we head to Bristol to catch a flight down to Barcelona to catch up with more friends Ev and Katy, fellow Melbournian's who have based themselves in London for a few years.

From Barcelona we travel to Milan for 24hrs of window shopping! Then fly south to Rome.

Our last 4 days will be spent meeting up with Erin's folks again in London before returning home to Melbourne... and settling our land and starting our build!!!

For the full story - check out our travel blog!! http://www.getjealous.com/aaron4erin

the valuation is good!...

"H" our new lovely CBA lady called to advise us that our valuation for the construction came in fine! Yippee! Fingers crossed... we now have no issues to stress over for the next month or so while we wait for our land to be titled!!

the bricks...

We found out the other day that our Selkirk Muscat Haze bricks are no longer available, infact Henley are moving away from the Selkirk range all together.

We've jumped onto the Austral and Boral sites this morning, and are about to head out to the displays for a closer look. The Austral range online didnt appeal so much to us, but we've found two Boral bricks that are quite nice.

Below is Boral - Mocha

and... Boral - Raheen