![\"Sunrise](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/e3b95f823024003a9fc869bbc4aad1309aba56f0.jpg\")
Camera IconSunrise presenter Nat Barr has opened up on her recent skin cancer diagnosis, revealing the news was \u2018a huge wake-up call\u2019. Credit: Instagram<\/p>\nIt\u2019s taken almost two years for Sunrise host Natalie Barr and her husband Andrew to fully accept the reality of being empty nesters.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt had never occurred to me what my life would be like when they walked out,\u201d the mother of two told The Sunday Times.<\/p>\n
While the silence of a quiet home can be deafening, Barr has been open in sharing her experiences with those entering the next phase of parenting.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, she admitted, there isn\u2019t too much she can say to fill the void.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve talked to quite a few women and some men who sort of stood back and said, \u2018Gee, I wasn\u2019t prepared for this. It\u2019s not something I thought about the moment they left home\u2019,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t actually know how you prepare yourself, because you do spend quite a bit of time being immersed in that whole family dynamic where often you wish you\u2019d have more time for yourself, and then all of a sudden you\u2019ve got all this time to yourself.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo be careful what you wish for.\u201d<\/p>\n
Camera IconSunrise presenter Nat Barr has opened up on her recent skin cancer diagnosis, revealing the news was \u2018a huge wake-up call\u2019. Credit: Instagram<\/p>\n
Grateful her two sons return home regularly, with her eldest based interstate, Barr said she\u2019s been forced to reflect on all the shared memories from their childhood.<\/p>\n
However, the 57-year-old insists it\u2019s not healthy to dwell for too long, \u201cbecause my life moves on, doesn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n
Discovering time stretches further when there are less distractions at home, she and her husband have set their sights on more travel abroad.<\/p>\n
Squeezing a recent getaway to Europe into their schedules, the couple were worried their two-week intercontinental dash would not bring the desired refresh.<\/p>\n
But it proved more than enough.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo weeks away when you haven\u2019t got little kids feels like a lot longer,\u201d Barr admitted.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a great trip actually,\u201d she added, somewhat guiltily. \u201cWe hadn\u2019t been away without the kids on a really sort of fancy trip like that for years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shifting gears between cocktails by the pool, and treading the cobblestones of historic cities, the increasingly frequent flyer even found a weekend this winter to return home to WA.<\/p>\n
And this time, as an grown up kid herself, the Bunbury luminary leaned into her other mother-child dynamic.<\/p>\n
As a tourism ambassador for our State, Barr was only too happy to sing WA\u2019s praises to her East Coast fans as she and her mum enjoyed long winery lunches, and soaked in the fresh air of Margaret River\u2019s coastline.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was a really beautiful experience, actually, just spending time together, but also going to places that someone else had given us on an itinerary, and quite a few of them even we hadn\u2019t been to,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
While she\u2019s spent decades away from WA since her early years as a journalist, the popular personality continues to annually visit her family\u2019s holiday house in Dunsborough that\u2019s been in their possession since the \u201970s.<\/p>\n
Just like each stage of life, the Telethon regular believes morning TV forces her to be open to a deviation from the script.<\/p>\n
Her favourite moment of each workday is the minutes before showtime that she and co-presenter Matt Shirvington ponder what might happen in the ensuing four hours, aware they could lose control at any time.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes we\u2019ll go by the schedule, but we have no idea,\u201d Barr admitted.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s still the thrill of going live across Australia and having no idea what\u2019s going to happen next.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s taken almost two years for Sunrise host Natalie Barr and her husband Andrew to fully accept the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,134,995,427],"class_list":{"0":"post-72893","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-influencers","12":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}