Pitt Street, George Street, the Queen Victoria Building – all the fantastic shopping sites of Sydney swished past as I longingly stared out the window of the monorail. ‘Let’s go around again, Mummy,’ my son said. Why not, I thought. You can go around as many times as you like for just the one price, until you are ready to get off. And it gives you a great view of the Darling Harbour area. We finally alighted at Paddy’s Market but no shopping for us. It’s off to the Powerhouse Museum – Australia’s largest museum full of interactive displays and fantastic for children. Full sized steam trains, robots that dance and a NASA space module where we experienced that zero gravity feeling. But the highlight for my son was the glass lift. Up and down, up and down…

And back at the Meriton Apartments where we were staying… up and down, up and down the 48 floors to our lovely apartment with fantastic views. This is a great place to stay when traveling with children. Make sure you book a two-bedroom apartment as they are higher up (quieter) than the one-bedroom apartments, and much more spacious. Most essential of all, they have a kitchen. With a good supermarket a few minutes walk away we had all the basics – cereal, bread, milk, fruit, eggs and hummus without forking out huge amounts for every meal.

The food highlight of our two days in Sydney was dinner at one of the top rated Thai restaurants – Longrain. We sat at one end of a long wooden table which steadily filled with diners as the evening progressed. Perhaps it was the dimly lit room that made it feel surprisingly cosy despite sharing the table with 20 or 30 others. The lights were dim enough to soften any middle aged wrinkles yet bright enough to allow middle aged eyes to read the menu. We chose whole grilled snapper with green papaya salad, pad thai noodles and a duck dish that tasted heaps better than my childhood memories from duck shooting season. I guess it helps not to see the thing being shot and plucked.

My husband was gutted though -  ‘do you have soft-shell crab still on the menu? (crustacean seafood that can be eaten whole if cooked shortly after molting their hard shell)’ he asked.  ‘Oh sorry, no we don’t anymore’ the hip waiter replied. ‘We change the menu regularly here and took that off because we had to bring in the crab from Thailand. The local Aussie crabs aren’t big enough, and we try to use local foods where possible.’  The food was yummy,  but I was disappointed to miss out on the soft-shell crab experience.

Next stop on our travels – Cairns. And no boring taxi ride to the airport for us. We’re taking the train!

• Luna Park
• Darling Harbour
• Powerhouse Museum
• Circular Quay
• Manly Beach
• Sydney Trains
• A few of my Sydney pics
• Sydney Meriton Apartments : Good for families, get the ‘World Tower’ if poss.