Missing Sydney

[nm123]

So we've been back in the uk for a year now. We were in Sydney for 18 months and moved back because I was pregnant and wanted to be closer to friends and family...

I keep dreaming and thinking about Sydney and wondering whether we should've stayed. Work opportunities were better for both DH and me, we had more money than we'd ever had before and life was easy - we lived v centrally, commutes were v short, it all just worked well. But - we found it tricky to make friends and the friends we did have, nice though they were, we're a tad dull...... We never really felt like we fell on our feet socially, and knew that the friends we did have would've lost interest in us when we had the baby.... Maternity leave and pay was shit and visa restrictions would've meant that I'd need to do full time hours and DD would be in a nursery 8-6 every day (which is fine for some people but just not what we had in mind when we started our family)....

Back in the UK I can take a year off for mat leave, walk round to my parents who are besotted with DD, hang out with age-old friends who've got new babies too. Yet DH is unhappy in work here, he does bloody long hours for average pay, opportunities for progression are limited (though he supports our decision to come home)...

I dunno... I knew I couldn't live there forever but I wonder if we should've given it more of a chance. I got a transfer with work and they were thankfully happy for me to stay there or come back, made very little difference either way to them....

Not sure what the point of my post is really. I know it's pointless wondering what if and I don't think I regret our decision to move home.....but I still wonder if we would be as happy or happier there.

[kelly14]

I feel exactly the same! i lived in Sydney for nearly 3 years and came home last July and i feel the 'pull' of sydney everyday when i wake i.! i am lucky in that i have Permanent Residency so can go back and am just waiting on my Return Resident Visa which is valid for another 5 years for me to get back out there and then do citizenship.

I loved sydney, lived in Lane Cove and had good job but i split with my daughters dad within 2 months of emigrating (he is still there and does his citizenship next month) and i unfortunatley met an abusive man and it nearly ruined my life, in the end my parents came out and i was very ill in hospital (had misscarriage and then had huge clot in my arm) and i literally packed up my whole life in a week to escape the monster i was with.

I cant regret leaving for that reason as i do think i would have ended up dead, but wish i had maybe moved to another state before giving up all my wordly possetions, job etc.

I hope to move back in the next few years, trouble now is my daughter is 7 and her memories of australia are not good ones so she will take some convincing!

Can you not apply for your own skilled visa?

[nm123]

Oh wow, sounds like you went through a really tough time... Sorry to hear that.

I think I could find work pretty easily and get a 457 again. DH could go for skilled PR if it came to it but I don't know that I even want to go back really.

When I think of the shite shops, the lack of choice, the funny redneck towns, how FAR oz is from EVERYTHING - these are all the things that made me know I couldn't live there forever and I know if we went back I'd be like "Ahh, yes, this is why we went home".... It's not that I want to go back, just perhaps more that I wish we'd tried it for a bit longer.

I think all this is exacerbated by the fact that I've just heard an ex-friend of mine out there is going for citizenship then coming home and I kind of wish we'd just done that. To at least have the option later in life. I dunno.