The Short Version of a Long Trip Home

Ten days before we were to leave for PNG, we were re-routed because of an error on the booking of our tickets. We were supposed to go from Columbus to New York to London to Tokyo to Cairns (Australia) and then after two nights there up to PNG. The new route was going to be Columbus to New York to London to Hong Kong to Sydney (overnight) and then up to Cairns. This made the trip time about 8 hours longer. Twelve hours before we were to depart for the Columbus airport, we were re-routed once again. This time we would be flying from Columbus to New York to Los Angeles to Brisbane to Cairns. While the process was a bit nerve-wracking, the route was much better for us. It had us arriving into Cairns 16 hours ahead of the original route and 24 hours ahead of the second route. So, a very long trip became a little shorter (but it was a long trip nonetheless with two restless boys who didn't sleep long enough on the flights for mommy and daddy).
We were thankful for a video on our personal video screens that kept Aden entertained for part of the time. He watched the making of the A380 Airbus at least 15 times. He didn't always make it through it, but it was started that many times for him. It was also nice to have a few days in Cairns to relax and adjust back to the routine of naps and nighttime sleeping. We also had some fun in the swimming pool as it was very hot there (a drastic change from the Ohio winter that we had just left). We enjoyed this time with "Bubu Jim", "Kah-tee", "Ceel-ya", Jo and "Yeedeeya". They traveled on our original route so we left them in New York and were reunited in Cairns before returning together to PNG.