After spending our first few days back in Sydney chilling in Manly, today we took the ferry to Circular Quay. The boat passed the iconic Opera House and Harbour Bridge, a journey you can’t fail to enjoy so that Amelia could go to watch Elf at Sydney Opera House with the rest of the Manly massive.

All of the kids were really excited to go into the Opera House for the first time and to watch this Xmas classic, and now a stage show.

Whenever we return to Sydney we look forward to taking the ferry across the harbour and checking out the various bays, boats and beaches, before we reach the finale, the city skyline and the passing of the opera house and the sight of the bridge looking down on us.

We’ve been fortunate to visit Sydney a number of times over the years, and having visited so many places over the last year, we can honestly say that this cities surroundings remain one of our favourite spots – it feels a little like coming home – just a home that’s over 10,000 miles from England.

We reached Circular Quay within 15mins and started to look around, there was a large cruise ship in the terminal that anywhere would dominate the whole view, but somehow it just blends into the rest of the vista, complementing the rest of the cities harbour frontage.

We passed Clark Island, a small island in Sydney Harbour, forming part of the Harbour National Park, lying offshore the suburb of Darling Point.

As Amelia and co went to watch Elf the Musical – which they loved, we went for a wander around the botanical gardens and on to Martins Place to see the Sydney Xmas tree.

The drinking fountain in the Royal Botanic Gardens, with a red granite base with Art Nouveau bronze statue of a young girl standing amid reeds, a heron and frogs. The fountain was a gift to the people of Sydney  in 1889 from the Levy family in memory of Lewis Wofle Levy, a politician and businessman.

The tallest Christmas tree in NSW, is decorated with more than 110,000 LED lights and 330 specially created glossy baubles.

The tree’s 800 branches are dressed with 15,000 flowers representing 9 different kinds of Australian flowers: banksia, waratah, bottlebrush, wattle, eucalyptus gum flower, kangaroo paw, flannel flower, pink wax flower and white wax flower.

Our next stop was The Queen Victoria Building (or QVB), is a late nineteenth-century building designed by the architect George McRae in the central business district of Sydney, Australia.

The Romanesque Revival building was constructed between 1893 and 1898 and is 30 metres wide by 190 metres long. The building fills a city block bounded by George, Market, York and Druitt Streets.

We then did a tour around the Westfield Shopping Centre, George Street before returning to Circular Quay to meet up with the girls once Elf the Musical had finished.

After some retail therapy we went for a walk up to Hyde Park and over to St Mary’s Cathedral where in the evening they project the Xmas story in light form on to the front of the church.

After a full day in the city, we returned to Manly early evening and we all descended on our apartment with more Xmas party games followed by a Xmas movie. These are turning into full days of fun.

Tomorrow is a return to beach action and a more relaxing affair at Freshwater.