An Australian in Paris: The city of light is now dark.

The City of Light is very dark tonight.

My four little babies are sleeping soundly next to me in the darkness of a Paris hotel room, but the world is not ok tonight.

There is bloody horror on the streets of Paris and the ghosts of those taken in petrifying circumstances now roam among us.

I want to get out. I want to go to London. But we can’t. The borders are closed. A state of emergency in all of France. It is the first time since the Nazis occupied Paris in 1944 that there has been a curfew.

We came to go to the “happiest place on earth” today. Disneyland Paris. A big surprise for our beautiful kids.

Instead my heart has shattered into pieces tonight at what has happened in this stunning country.  

Someone just ran down the hotel hall way at full speed. My heart stopped and my husband and I froze. I think of barricading the hotel room door. But what for…. what would it stop … what would it change?

….

We have been told to stay inside and stay quiet by our embassies. We listen to the advice but I want to get out. We resist the urge to move.

Staying quiet is not so easy for the baby in the hotel room next door who wakes every 20 minutes screaming. She must be teething. I contemplate taking baby nurofen next door but decide to stay put at this stage.

There will be no sleep tonight…but that is nothing compared to the horror witnessed by so many Parisians when darkness fell here.

This madness must stop. This is not peace. Make it stop.

I feel selfish for the lengths I want to go to now to keep my babies safe. To shield them from the horror. To leave. I realise some people have lost that ability forever tonight.

We will shield our kids from the news when they wake, eat breakfast and play games.
Inside. Quietly.

My heart aches for France tonight and for the souls they have lost.