To give those that don't know a bit of background to Colin's maternity leave (what I am calling it). Colin has not been enjoying his job for quite a few months and I am still really enjoying mine, as well as having plenty of work on so that I had been working long days. As well as us, the kids were finding daycare and school tiring with them and us exhausted by Fridays.

We had tried to make this change at the end of 2007, however, it was only after some discussions with my migration department that we found out we couldn't transfer our visa to my name as the Australian government required me to be working full-time. It took until March for my contract to be changed to be full time so from the beginning of April, both Colin and I worked full time whilst we re-applied for visas, this time with me as the main name. We had a slight hiccup as we had to get x-rays again (and medicals for the kids), and unfortunately Adam happend to have a little bug, so he "failed" the medical so had to go to our doctor to get some lab tests to confirm he was not about to use all the Australian medical services (I managed to restrain myself from pointing out that he had an Australian illness!!).

After all that, we got the visas approved - took about 10 weeks in total - and Colin talked things through with his boss and arranged his sabbatical - he returns to work at the beginning of March - if both he and his employer want it!!