I finally got that long-awaited gin and tonic. Or rather three gin and tonics. The Qatar Airways flight attendant keep bringing them to me. Maybe he sensed the cloud of stress above me, the mild stench of anxiety surrounding me or the furrows of worry on my face. With each G&T all of those emotions were replaced with just one: relief.

We are on our way home to Australia.

After three months of living in limbo with the constant fear of not getting home as the Australian Government played with our destinies, Padma and I boarded a near empty plane in Frankfurt bound for Doha. Two hours earlier Joseph, albeit regrettably sans Mary, boarded a flight in Paris. Our joint destination is Qatar where we will reunite for the final leg of our homeward journey to Perth.

As the wheels of the Airbus lifted off the tarmac in Frankfurt I couldn’t contain the moisture in my eyes. Saying ‘Aufwiedershen’ to my ancestral homeland and to the country I loved and to the friends we made was too overwhelming to me.

But I dried those misty eyes by thinking ahead about our destination and the lives Padma and I will carve out for ourselves, the new friends we will make and the inevitable life adventures we will continue to enjoy.