It should have been the year of adventure for the Holten family. Flying in from Holland on February 29 to join her husband Jacco at the Lakefront apartment he'd rented in Kingston, Dyane and their two children Alec and Chloe were looking forward to a year exploring Australia together.
Instead, social-distancing measures introduced to prevent the spread of coronavirus saw the Dutch family in lockdown within weeks of arriving in Canberra.
Just days after classes started for Alec and Chloe at Canberra's international school, the siblings were among the majority of students around the country sent home to participate in remote learning.
Unlike other nine and seven-year-olds, fresh off the plane to join their dad at his new job in the ACT, the Holten kids don't speak English.
They're more connected now. They only have each other.
Dyane Holten
Unfortunately for the Holtens, Telopea Park School classes were not adapted to reflect this.
"Their first lesson was to put everything into past tense," Dyane said.
"They don't even know what present tense is."
A civil lawyer, Dyane continued to manage her clients in Holland while supervising the end of term one schooling for her two children.
With few contacts in Australia besides from the colleagues Jacco has met at his government job, the couple are navigating this unfamiliar existence inside their third-floor foreshore apartment home, a long way from loved ones.
"We don't get sick of each other at all, fortunately," Dyane said.
"He has his work and he's doing his job, we try not to interfere with that too much during the week. On the weekends we are more together."
With plans to attend the Grand Prix dashed in March and an Easter tour of Tasmania cancelled in April, Dyane said she worries a lot about how the self-isolation measures have affected Alec and Chloe.
"They don't know anybody. There are no sport activities for them so no friends - nothing," she said.
The children moved from the international school, to remote learning, to a hub school in Red Hill for term two, all in just a few weeks.
Dyane said there has been tears and sleepless nights as they adjust to a life with little opportunity to speak or play with anyone outside the apartment.
"They have always been good friends. They're more connected now. They only have each other," she said.
With an eight-hour time difference between Holland and Canberra, there's limited opportunity to Skype or Zoom friends and family from back home.
The Holtens did consider boarding a KLM Airlines repatriation flight home but Jacco's work meant it wasn't really possible.
Dyane said from her perspective the approach of the Australian government has been more heavy-handed than the Dutch.
She said her profession has made her particularly weary of the speed of which new laws were introduced to contain the pandemic.
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"I'm surprised by what I'm seeing now. Laws that right now are in conflict with the constitution are being pushed through," Dyane said.
She said Australia and Holland could learn from other nations that these small changes add up and they wouldn't just disappear easily as soon as coronavirus does.
"All of a sudden certain rights of freedom, rights of education are just gone," she said.
- This is the first in an ongoing series featuring several households at the Lakefront apartments in Kingston talking about how coronavirus has affected their lives. The Canberra Times intends to speak with residents again in six months' time to see how things have changed.
