Sunrise host Nat Barr opens up about her secret behind the scenes struggle: ‘I honestly just feel sad’

Sunrise host Natalie Barr has confessed she misses her sons ‘so much’ after she and her husband became empty nesters this year.

The Channel Seven presenter, 56, shares two sons with her husband Andrew Thompson: Hunter, 18, and Andrew, 22.

Barr said she would drive to Canberra on Mother’s Day to visit her youngest son after he moved to the nation’s capital to study.

“I’m going to Canberra (for a day trip) – just spending time with your kids (is a gift enough),” she told Sunrise on Friday morning.

‘I miss them so much. I’m going to my son.

‘I also go to Coffee Club with some other mums, which is fantastic.’

Barr spoke candidly about how she and her husband became empty nesters after Hunter moved away to attend college earlier this year.

The Channel Seven presenter, 56, shares two sons with her husband Andrew Thompson; Hunter 18, and Andrew, 22 (the family is pictured on holiday)

“I don’t feel the new chapter yet,” she said Stellar magazine in March.

“The first one left a few years ago and he’s at university in Melbourne and the second one left a few weeks ago. He went to university in Canberra.

‘We packed up the car, drove it down, said our goodbyes and roared back. I think we mourned the period of our lives that is now gone forever, because it is their childhood (which is over).

“You say the right things: you have all this freedom, you can do whatever you want, it’s a new beginning for you.” But I don’t feel that yet. Honestly, I just feel sad.

“That’s the honest truth.”

In February, Barr wrote that her home had become quiet after years of “noise, sweat and boy smells” in a piece about motherhood for 7News.

Barr said she missed her two sons “so much” after they left home for college

“Our 18-year-old, our youngest, is packing to move to college, and I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. Have I done enough for them and been enough for them, because ‘Phase 1′ is over and we’ll never get that back?’ she wrote in it

‘I enjoyed it with every bone in my body. But what now?

‘And then I think of another statement from the parents who have been here before… your children can only be borrowed from you.’

“Hopefully our best is enough, they are ready for ‘Phase 2’ and we can hold on for the next part of the journey.”

Natalie joined Seven’s breakfast show as a newsreader in 2003 and was promoted to co-anchor in 2021 following the departure of Sam Armytage.

Her husband Andrew is an Oscar-nominated film and TV editor, best known for his short film The Eleven O’Clock. The couple married in 1995.