LKC

I knew I didn't want to move back to where we'd moved to Aus from (Suffolk - just sort of ended up there after uni), or where ex's family (Kent) or mine (Birmingham) were from. We looked at Bath/Bristol area, Yorkshire, Northumberland, Lancashire areas, and Scotland. Scotland just ticked more boxes, and ex was offered work, so it all fell into place. I still can't believe that I found this place from the other side of the world Life is good, and we have been made more than welcome here, so I would definitely recommend Scotland. I know that a couple of other members/ex members of PIO have had similar experiences.

I started to feel that tug home at around the seven year mark. We came over to thee UK on holiday, and I literally told my OH that I wasn't going to go back, and he should leave me and the kids, fly back and sort things out. In the end, we did go back to Aus, but within a year we'd moved back to the UK because the pull was so strong. Even though our marriage has broken down since we got back, I am absolutely sure that moving back is the best thing I've ever done! We moved to Scotland (where we'd never lived before) rather than England, but I've never regretted it even for a second. The kids settled easily, and it has been an amazing experience!

We didn't have to pay six months up front because my ex had a job offer and could show his contract, so that might be worth bearing in mind.The schooling thing might be the difficult thing. It might be worth contacting a couple of schools in the area you intend to return to, and see if they can offer any advice.

Yep, like tea4too says, no idea about the financial side of things, but we moved to Scotland from Aus about 2.5 years ago, having never lived here before, and it is the absolute best thing I have ever done in my life! We lived in Sydney for about 9 years, but the pull of home started to become too much to bear. We came over to the UK for a holiday in 2016, and visited Scotland as part of that holiday. I absolutely fell in love with the place, and pretty much cried my way down the A1(M) etc on our way back to my ex's parents house in Kent, where we were staying for the last few days before we flew back to Aus. We moved over in September 2017 (me, my ex, our two primary school aged children, and four cats), and moved to a gorgeous village to the west of Kinross. Husband and I have since separated, but the kids and I have found ourselves immersed in the most amazing community, into which we have been welcomed with open arms! I feel more at home here than I have ever felt anywhere in my life. Like I was always meant to be here! I have since retrained for a new career, have started my own business, met a lovely man, and the kids are happy and settled in their new life, with plenty of friends and both doing well at school. The people are friendly, the place is absolutely gorgeous (honestly I don't think I'll ever get tired of walking in the hills where we live), and I don't have even a single regret about moving here Have you any idea where you'd like to live?

Yeah, they were pretty quick to tell us we had to pay extra to move our stuff to Dollar instead of Edinburgh, even though there is no difference in distance (in fact Dollar might even be closer). I've just looked back in my emails to see if I can find out how much they tried to charge and can't find the emails, but I think it was something like £1000 extra they wanted - it's almost like they were charging us for a full move from Edinburgh to Dollar or something! The other issue that we had, was that as part of the original quote from Chess, they were to unwrap and take away all packaging. I'd already marked any boxes/furniture that we wanted to keep packed and stored in the garage (because we figured we'd move from the rental at some point, and there was no point in packing up again), but they didn't unpack/unwrap any of the other stuff that we wanted in the house. I spent weeks driving back and forth to the tip to take the cardboard, wrapping paper and stuff to be recycled! That said, the Chess end were absolutely outstanding. They packaged everything up really well, and nothing was broken at all.

They used Britannia Movers. We did have a couple of problems this end, although they were sorted out. When we accepted the quote and booked the removals, we didn't have an address at this end, so we just said 'Edinburgh area'. In fact my ex got a job in Dunfermline so we ended up in Dollar area. Britannia tried to charge us more for the removal from the dock at Grangemouth to our rental house, until we pointed out that in fact Dollar is no further from Grangemouth than Edinburgh. Our rental was up a narrow lane, and the container wouldn't have fit up the lane, so we had to pay extra for it to be offloaded into two smaller vans, which from memory cost us about £500 extra. It was all good in the end, and when we received our belongings it was like Christmas! I used an app called Sortly to create an inventory of what was in each box, and then printed out QR codes for each box so I could use Sortly to scan amd know what was in each box without trying.

We used Chess too. It was really straight forward. They packed/wrapped everything on day one, and then packed it into a shipping container on day two. It cost us a little under $8,000 to ship the contents of a five bedroom home from Sydney to Scotland.

We just replaced the plugs. That was only small stuff like lamps though - we didn't bring TV's or kitchen appliances back. The only thing I did bring back and haven't done is my sewing machine, because I'm not sure it'd work, with it having a motor (and I've not had chance to do any sewing anyway!). I thought it might affect the timing of the machine, and therefore the stitch quality.

What a fantastic update! I'm so happy that you managed to take your son with you! It all sounds wonderful, and like you had a really amazing time The first time we took our girls back to the UK on holiday was magical too. They were gobsmacked by everything! We've since moved back (to Scotland), and they love it just as much as I do, even though they grew up in Aus.

And to anyone thinking about moving to Scotland, the system here is a bit different. The cut off date for birthdays is the end of Feb, but the education system is quite flexible here in that you can hold a child back if they have a Dec/Jan/Feb birthday and feel it will be beneficial. They also start school slightly later, have 7 years of primary (and part time nursery before that) and 6 of high school. Our eldest was almost finished Y6 in Aus (and so about four months off high school), but because she is an April birthday, when we moved to Scotland she moved back to the beginning of P7, and so had almost a full year of the last year of primary to settle in before hitting high school (we moved in September, but the school year here starts in August, so she'd missed a month or so). This proved highly beneficial for her, because she is autistic and needed a bit of extra time to adjust. Our youngest daughter is a February baby, and we decided to hold her back to the year below. In part to maintain the two year difference in school years between the two of them, so that she would be the eldest in the year rather than the youngest), but also to give her a bit more settling in time. She is the eldest in the school now (she's in P7) and has got bucket loads of confidence and is doing really well academically. There were gaps in both of their knowledge and there were things that they were a bit behind on, but the teachers here (in Scotland anyway, where we don't have sats or anything) just seem to teach to the individual, and tailor the work to the pupil, rather than teaching the same thing in the same way to the whole class. Our school is small, and so it is all composite classes anyway (youngest is in a P6/7), but the teachers just seem to be able to do that. They both caught up really quickly. I think the hardest thing was the Scottish history, because they'd only done Australian, and being English I hadn't really done any Scottish history so couldn't help much!

No, no extra homework or anything. The gaps just got filled in in class. It hasn’t affected them academically at all, and they’re both doing well. They’ve not been bullied for being foreign at all, remember that the UK is generally accepting of migrants. There was curiosity from the other kids, and lots of questions (like did you have a kangaroo as a pet), but they made friends easily and were just accepted for who they are. A bit over two years on and they’re both doing well, and although I’d thought they’d have lost their Aussie accents, they still speak the same as the day we left

I posted on local Facebook groups. I sold some stuff, but much of it I gave away for free. I figured that it'd cost me to ship it, so it didn't matter if I didn't get anything for it.

One thing that I'd like to add, is that moving to Australia (and subsequently moving back) put a massive strain on what I thought was a very strong marriage. We've been back in the UK for just over two years, and ex and I separated just over a year ago. Moving to Australia (or moving back) wasn't the reason for the split, but the stress involved, physical, mental, emotional and financial, certainly added fuel to the fire. I would imagine that this would be magnified if both partners aren't 100% committed to it.

I like the winter more since we moved back. I think I appreciate the big differences between the seasons a bit more. I live on the southern edge of the Scottish Highlands, and we had our first sight of snow on the hills by my house the other day. It's cold, but clear with blue skies and bright sunshine at the moment - my perfect kind of weather! I can get rugged up and go out in the day, and I can spend cosy evenings snuggled up on the sofa with the log burner going. I think winter is a time for cosying in, reflecting on the year that has passed, and looking forward to the new year ahead. It feels like the days are very short, and they will get shorter still, but it's actually only a few weeks until it switches over and will start to get lighter again.

We moved back just over two years ago, and I don't regret it for a second. It hasn't worked out as I thought it would (husband and I separated since we got back), but life is good and I wouldn't change anything!

We moved back to Scotland (which might be a bit different to England), but our youngest's birthday was right before the February cut off for school (which I think is end of August in England), and they allowed her to go into the year below. There were gaps in their knowledge (particularly in things like history - they'd done no Scottish history at all in Aus), but they were ahead in other areas, and they soon caught up. I wouldn't say it has affected their education at all.

Would also second the advice to look north. We moved to Scotland, and I love it here!

Email me Loads has changed since we last spoke!

I think we used insure4less too.

We went to Sydney from Suffolk, but moved back to Scotland where we'd never lived before (ex was offered a job here). The kids and I have had absolutely no trouble making friends at all. Not sure about ex, I don't really have much to do with him now. Obviously it was easy for the kids at school, but I had to get out and about. I joined the school PTA (and am now treasurer) and the village hall committee (and am treasurer for that too - I retrained as a bookkeeper/tax agent since I got back, so it's not as weird as it sounds!), so I've made friends there, plus some at the school gates, and also have some great neighbours. I didn't say no to any offer of coffee or a drink, and just made sure that I got out and about and joined in. I found it quite difficult to make friends in Aus, despite trying the same things, but here I've found it easy. I've probably got better friends here than I've ever had, and I couldn't have got through my separation without them. My closest family is about a 4 hour drive away, and the rest are 6+ hours, so I have no family close either. My separation was on the cards long before we moved back to the UK. I'm just thankful that we were home before it actually happened. Life is much better now, the kids and I are happy and settled, and the future looks very rosy indeed

I don't have an awful lot of advice to offer, but we moved back two years ago yesterday, and it has by far been the best thing we've ever done! There is some uncertainty about the whole Brexit thing, but day to day so far it isn't really affecting our lives. Sadly my husband and I have parted ways since we moved back, but even though we moved to a different area of the UK than we were from, I have found it incredibly easy to build up a good network of friends, who have been absolutely my rock over the past year or so. Just a quick note on the passports - If you have Australian passports, you can travel on those (i.e. show them to the airline at check in), but you can enter the UK on expired British passports, because that is exactly what we did. Our children were 1 and 2 when they had their passport photos taken, and were 9 and 11 when we moved back, and aside from the passport control man making a joke about how they didn't look like their photos any more, the only other thing he said was 'Welcome home!'. There is no obligation to hold a passport, and the fact that you have one, expired or not, proves citizenship to enter.

It might depend a little bit on what you can afford to pay for rent/mortgage. Houses towards the rivers/ocean are more expensive than those slightly more inland, and obviously you'd have to be in the catchment for the school so house/rent price would be a factor. I only have knowledge of Engadine High and Heathcote High, having lived in that area, and although Heathcote High was our catchment school (and not a bad school, by any means), we'd have made a placing request for Engadine. There is a selective school in Caringbah, but there are entrance exams for that.

I'm no longer in Sutherland Shire (move back to Scotland a couple of years ago), but have a look at the Facebook group 'Everything Sutherland Shire', or maybe even try Meetup.com. You might find a social group or something like that on there. You could look out for sport groups and things like that, if that's your thing.

And the point of no return can be with respect to other things too. My husband and I separated just over a year after we moved back to the UK from Australia. I shudder to think what would have happened if we hadn't made the decision to move back at the time when we did. I'd have either been stuck in a very unhappy marriage in Australia (because I'm not sure I'd have had the confidence to tell him it was over without friends/family at reasonably close range), or we would have separated but I would have been unable to move back to the UK with the kids, either of which would have pretty much destroyed me.

My ex had a job interview via Skype (or it might have been Facetime) before we came back. He was really lucky with his new employer - he was headhunted by them, and they did things like look around a rental on our behalf so that we could move straight into a rental (we had two kids and four cats so AirBnB would have been difficult). I agree with Marisawright that you could start to sort and pack now. I started ours about nine months before we actually moved. I used an app (I think it was called Sortly) to log an inventory of each box and stick a label with a QR code linked to the inventory, so I always knew exactly what was in each box. It was a great opportunity to get rid of some stuff.