Planning a trip to Australia - 2 weeks in Australia for a family of 4

  2 week trip to Australia. 

When I first heard we were getting the opportunity to go to Australia, two things immediately popped into mind : great white sharks (Shark Week happened to be airing at the time on the Discovery Channel) and Crocodile Dundee (showing my age :)  I have to admit, this was about the extent of my knowledge of the Australian continent.  Regardless, these two things led to planning the foundation of our trip - wanting to see the Great Barrier Reef and the Australian Outback. 

• As we started to do some research, key topics came to light :
• - We wanted to learn about the history of the nation, history of the aboriginal culture and how it is similar / different from our own based on our common British roots, the condition of the Great Barrier Reef and about the animals that live there and the Australian rainforest (Daintree)
• We wanted to experience geographic and cultural highlights : 
• - to see the Great Barrier Reef, to see the outback - to see Darwin (crocodiles and rainforests) - to see New Zealand (Lord of the Rings filming grounds :)

The most challenging part was realizing that we would not be able to see and do everything in the time allotted or on our budget, so we had to create a priority list.  I was able to do this by answering the following questions:

1. Why did we want to go to Australia?
2. What was the one sight that we were not willing to miss / what was on our must-see list?
3. What did we want to learn / experience?
4. What was our maximum time limit and budget?  (I wish we all could do without this one, but it is a "necessary evil.")

For us, the following trip materialized:  Home (United States) - Cairns/PalmCove - Outback - Sydney - Home.

We flew out on a Friday evening and arrived in Cairns late morning on Sunday :) - Wow - I stressed about that before we left - how was I going to make it on a plane with my kiddos for 17 straight hours - the length of the flight from the continental USA to Brisbane - but ironically, the hype was far worse than the actual event.  We actually had fun - great movies, great service, and fun to be a plane large enough to cross the Pacific without stopping.

Just a few helpful hints when traveling with children on long flight (our longest flight was 17 hours).

• Individual backpacks : headphones that are comfortable, mini-pillow, favorite snacks, wet wipes, books/paper/markers/etc. depending on child's interests, blanket, and eye mask - it helps them fall and stay asleep (we were only able to grab about 6 hours of sleep, but 6 hours was better than none ;).

A trick for staying on top of jetlag heading West to Australia that worked well for me:

1. we immediately started thinking, acting, eating, etc. in accordance with the local timezone - we arrived in the morning, so we went for breakfast
2. we stayed awake and active all day - just like it was normal even though we were exhausted :)
3. we went to bed really early - the kids were in bed by 5:30 PM and the adults by 6:30 PM - we slept for over 12 straight hours - we awoke early the next morning ready to tackle the Great Barrier Reef and fairly acclimated to local time.

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