Uplift continues....

The packers arrived at 8am, and continued to box everything up. Phil met them at 8am, Nicole and the kids went for a swim in the pool after breakfast. Nicole and the kids arrived before lunchtime to start helping. (It’s not the most fun the kids have had, but everyone else was at school...so a little bit tricky). They kept themselves occupied by taking photos of the workers, video of them working, and playing with marbles down the stairwell, keeping out the way as much as possible.

After lunch the first container arrived.

When we moved into this apartment almost 6 years ago, our dining room table and entertanment unit were too large for the stairwell (because of the tight turns). We had to hire a furniture crane and lift them up to the terrace and through the terrace doors. When Nicole had the 2 companies quoting on the removalist, she made sure that this was explained, and that the hire of the furniture crane was included.


It was quick to install,(much to the shock of one of our neighbours who was very concerned that it would damage the grass. What is it with people being so precious about grass???) The boys loved watching the crane come together.

The crane was fantastic. The guys could put lots of boxes on the platform and send it to ground level, pop them on a trolley and wheel it to the container.  It was so quick, and the guys were glad not to be carrying boxes down 3 flights of stairs all day long (especially all the book boxes).

The container was full, and then locked up and started the drive to Hamburg to meet the ship that will take it to Australia.

As rooms were cleared, we continued to wipe down skirting boards, clean windows and vacuum, so there was little to do once the last few boxes were removed.

The boxes were cleared, rubbish in the bin, left over boxes and bubble wrap packed up and our apartment was empty. It echoed! It felt strange to see it so empty. Nicole remembers sitting in the empty apartment when we first arrived waiting for the telephone company to come in and install phones and internet access. Memories of measuring up for curtains, light fixtures, toilet roll holders, etc with her IKEA catalogue in hand. Then remembering the day all our furniture arrived from Australia to be unpacked in the apartment (on Alexander’s birthday), and the previous evening having 30cm+ of snow fall out of the sky.
We handed our keys to Sabine, our relocation agent to look after everything else for us, and shut the door. The end of a chapter.