Just two weeks later, that same peaceful coastline was devastated during the Boxing Day tsunami.

The Ballarat youngsters, now aged 13 and eight, and their parents Jayantha and Shirani were visiting the country's capital of Colombo, out of the path of the tsunami, when the wave hit.

The family had planned to return to the beach on Boxing Day, to capture the coastline on their video camera, after they accidentally erased their earlier vision, but a relative's baby became ill and the family postponed their

beach visit.

Speaking from their Lake Gardens home a year on from the tsunami, the family said God had spared them.

"Maybe God protected us," Mrs Gamlath told The Courier.

Mrs Gamlath said if the family had ventured back to the beach as planned, their children would most likely have been playing at the water's edge when the tsunami struck.

The Gamlath family moved to Ballarat from Sri Lanka in 2002.

Mrs Gamlath is a lecturer in food science at the University of Ballarat and her husband is completing a thesis in the same field.

The family returned to Sri Lanka for a holiday to catch up with family and friends.

They lost some friends in the disaster while others narrowly survived.

One couple heard the noise of the tsunami and ran from their house. They survived but their house was obliterated.

Another friend, a Queensland university lecturer, lost 68 family members in the tsunami.

The family joined the Sri Lankan relief effort after the tsunami, collecting aid to send to the stricken areas.

And they said returning to Australia and every-day life after the event was surreal.

The couple said the country was slowing being re-built in the wake of the disaster and they thanked Australians for their generosity in giving aid.