Three siblings spend 90 minutes at their farmhouse in Palmoli with their parents and animals, as a court-ordered reunification moves towards overnight stays.The three young children at the centre of Italy's "forest family" case returned to their family farmhouse on Tuesday afternoon for the first time since they were taken into care 11 months ago.  The children arrived at about 16.30 and were met on the driveway by their parents, Nathan Trevallion and Catherine Birmingham. The children hugged and stroked the animals on the small farm, before the family enjoyed a snack of fruit and home-made biscuits in the garden.   The visit lasted about an hour and a half. "For us it is the house in the woods, for them it is safety, warmth, the nest so long awaited," said the family's lawyer, Simone Pillon, who said he was moved to tears. He called it "another step towards the definitive return" and said overnight stays should begin in about 15 days. The children are due to return to the farmhouse every two weeks.Palmoli mayor Giuseppe Masciulli closed the access roads about 300 metres from the property so that journalists and onlookers stayed away, and the couple fenced off their home and put up a handwritten sign reading "Thank you for understanding". A previous meeting had been disrupted. How the case began Trevallion and Birmingham, an Anglo-Australian couple, moved to a farmhouse in the woods of Palmoli in 2021 and lived "off-grid", largely cut off from society. In September 2024 the whole family was rushed to hospital with severe poisoning from wild mushrooms. A carabinieri check of the house led to a report that resulted in the suspension of parental authority, though the children stayed with their parents at that stage. The farmhouse had no running water, electricity, gas or indoor bathroom, and the juvenile court considered it unsuitable.   On 20 November 2025 the L'Aquila juvenile court's order was carried out. The children were placed in a protected home in Vasto, with limited access to their mother, and parental responsibility was suspended. Nearly 160,000 people signed an online petition asking for the family to be kept together. Justice minister Carlo Nordio ordered an inspection of the court, and on 4 June closed the matter without finding disciplinary wrongdoing. Earlier this year Trevallion and Birmingham were received by Italy's senate speaker Ignazio La Russa in Rome, in a bid to be reunited with their children. The road back In June 2026, court-appointed experts filed reports declaring the parents suitable. In late August the court ordered a gradual return, with the children still living in the Vasto home and attending state school.   The first meeting took place on 22 September in a house in Palmoli that the council has granted the couple free for two years. The children had never been inside it, as they were already in Vasto when it was assigned.