Here we speak to four sets of Tasmanian siblings who willingly spend a huge chunk of time together for work – and play – in the realms of art, business, sport and agriculture. All admit there are ups and downs in their family relationships – as well as a healthy dose of sibling rivalry – but they also offer plenty of insights into what they believe is a winning formula for a good sibling relationship.

KATERINA LARSEN AND ADONI ASTRINAKIS

Katerina Larsen, 42, and Adoni Astrinakis, 40, are professional artists with a talent for figurative realism.

They grew up in Hobart happily drawing together for hours, often replicating their favourite characters from cartoons and movies.

But because they were both talented at art, they didn’t realise what a gift it was at first – they simply assumed all kids could draw like they could.

Katerina attended St Michael’s Collegiate and completed a bachelor of art/law at the University of Tasmania, and harnessed her creativity by acting and running her own production company, Catch The Bird.

Meanwhile, Astrinakis attended The Hutchins School and gained a bachelor of commerce from UTAS, later working as a business executive.

But he increasingly turned to painting as a stress release and surprised himself with the standard of the work he was able to produce, eventually taking the leap and establishing himself as a full-time professional artist.

Katerina says she was proud of her little brother. And seeing his success made her realise she also wanted to try her hand at an art career.

“He really inspired me,’’ Katerina explains.

“Even though art was our thing, I’d just never really considered it as a career possibility. But I was so excited for him, and there was something in me that said, ‘Gosh, I’d love to be doing that too’.’’

It was a leap that was worth taking. Both the self-taught creatives now work independently as successful artists in Victoria – selling their works locally and internationally (follow them at katerinalarsen.com and adoniart.com).

The dynamic duo had artworks showcased to hundreds of thousands of Australian TV viewers last year as part of Channel 9 renovation series The Block.

Adoni showcases his art in New York and has been a finalist in the Shirley Hannah National Portraiture Prize and the Lester Prize for Portraiture.

Adoni says art enthusiasts are often “blown away” when they discover the two artists are related.

Although they work separately, they champion each other’s talent, and push each other to be the best possible artists, popping into each other’s studios regularly to offer constructive advice.

“We’ve never been competitive with our artwork, we’ve always inspired each other to be better,’’ Adoni says.

“We’re always striving to draw with next-level accuracy, so we one-up each other in a friendly, playful way.

“Katerina will walk in, and I’ll be happy with something and think I’ve nearly finished it.

And then she’ll point one or two things out in a loving way – and you don’t want to hear that sort of criticism when you think you’ve almost got something – and I’ll disagree, and stew on it for half an hour, and then realise that she’s absolutely right. It’s nice to have that trusted safety net.’’

“It works other way around as well,” Katerina adds. “He does the same for me.’’

They both feel fortunate to share such a close bond – and a passion for art.

“Adoni and I have always been close,’’ Katerina says.

“Pretty much from the moment we popped out we had pencils in our hands and were drawing together – Mum said it was so good because she could take us anywhere with a pen or a pencil, and we’d happily sketch away.

“Anyone who knows us says ‘you guys are the closest brother and sister we know’. People think we’re twins, we play fight like we’re in grade three, we’re also each other’s champion as well.’’

MOLLY AND MAGNUS MCCAUSLAND

Sibling rivalry is often considered to be a bad thing. But Tasmanian Institute of Sport (TIS) athletes Molly and Magnus McCausland say a bit of healthy competition between siblings actually makes life interesting, and ensures they’re pushing themselves that little bit harder when training and competing.

Molly, 22, is a rower who started training at the TIS in 2021. Her brother Magnus, 19, is a hockey player who signed with the TIS a year later.

It’s not uncommon to have siblings at the institute – there are currently eight sets of siblings at the TIS across various sports including hockey, cycling, rowing and netball.

Molly says although she and Magnus play different sports, and have different training schedules, there’s still plenty of overlap. And that’s where the sibling rivalry comes in.

Molly gets up at 4.20am most days and is training on the water at New Town Bay by 5.15am, while Magnus trains on the hockey turf later in the day.

Three days a week the Lenah Valley siblings have sessions at the TIS.

“Sometimes our gym sessions line up,’’ says Molly, who also works in a casual admin role with Mures.

“It’s really fun when we end up in the gym together – all the different athletes from all the different sports. There’s a Wednesday challenge and usually hockey players have a go at that in the morning, and write up their results on the whiteboard in the gym. Then I come in on Wednesday afternoon and say ‘what did Magnus get?’ and try and beat him and send him a message, to tell him that I beat him.

“There’s a bit of competition between us. But it’s all in good fun, there’s no pressure.’’

The siblings spent a “fair chunk” of time together growing up, as they both played hockey and both rowed, with many regatta weekends spent at Lake Barrington.

“We spent a lot of time together … weekends at hockey games and rowing, and lots and lots of car trips,’’ explains Molly.

There was no family connection to hockey – neither of their parents played – although their parents were friends with Olympic hockey star Matthew Wells. Magnus suddenly decided at age five that he wanted to play hockey.

Back then, there were none of the hockey programs for very young children that there are now, but after many calls to local hockey clubs, Magnus was allowed to play in an Under 12s team.

“He’s been doing fantastic things with hockey since he was quite young,’’ Molly says proudly of her sibling.

“He was only 14 when he played his first season of Premier League hockey (with Derwent) as a goalkeeper, and they made it to the grand final, and he won man of the match. There were mostly adults on the team … the other players were a lot older and had lots more experience.’’

Magnus, who works as a teacher’s assistant at Hobart City High School, has also been playing on state teams since he was young and recently made the Australian Futures Squad, a national development squad featuring the best young hockey players from across the nation.

Encouraged by the enthusiasm Magnus had for hockey from a young age, Molly decided to sign up to the sport as well.

Then she began rowing at 12 – inspired by family friend and former world champion rower and Olympian Dana Faletic. Magnus watched from the sidelines until he was old enough to take up the sport.

Molly says having played both sports, the siblings have a shared understanding of what the other is going through in their individual pursuit of sporting success.

She says having a sporty sibling also meant there was a level of understanding which many outside the sporting world couldn’t comprehend.

“We can be supportive of each other,’’ Molly says. ‘’We have an understanding of both the highs and the lows that come with rejections and losses and things that to a non-athlete can sometimes feel or look a little bit silly maybe. But to an athlete it’s like your world, and things can just be so soul crushing, so it’s good to have someone who understands that.’’

HANNAH AND RACHEL VASICEK

Sisters Hannah and Rachel Vasicek describe themselves as being “born hustlers”.

The founders and faces of successful Tasmanian-owned jewellery business Francesca – which has stores in Hobart and Melbourne as well as an international online presence – the siblings showed entrepreneurial spirit from a young age.

Hannah, now 34, started selling lollies on the school bus as a way to feed hungry travellers and make some quick cash.

She was living in remote New South Wales at that time, and spending 20 hours a week on the bus (two hours to school each day and two hours home again), so it was quite a profitable enterprise.

“It made me realise that I loved finding something I could market and find the right audience for,’’ she explains.

Hannah used the money to buy beads to make jewellery, and by the time she and her family moved to Tasmania when she was 16, she had boxes of jewellery stockpiled, so she approached local galleries at Salamanca to sell her handmade pieces.

Soon she was at Salamanca Market every Saturday, selling jewellery with the help of Rachel, who had just turned 11.

“We weren’t the kids who had a free weekend every week,’’ Hannah recalls.

“We would set up, sell, then make jewellery for the rest of the weekend, and that kind of set us up for our careers going forward.’’

Hannah studied science and law at university, and was offered a graduate position at a top law firm.

But ultimately she turned it down, deciding to focus on her business. And she says it’s the best decisions she could have made, as the business continues to boom and the sisters continue to love their business journey together.

By the time Hannah finished uni, Rachel – who is five and a half years younger – was finishing Year 12, and Hannah convinced her to continue working with the business. They opened their first shopfront in Hobart in 2013.

“At the start we literally did everything,’’ Hannah says.

“We spent all our time at the Harrington St store – upstairs we’d make jewellery and then we’d be downstairs serving customers. Rachel would take photos, and we used Instagram for the first time, and I was kind of running the strategy.’’

The award-winning business has now grown into a booming empire with 74 staff, stores in Hobart’s Cat and Fiddle Arcade and Melbourne Central, and a global online presence. Their popular bracelets are still hand beaded in Hobart, and the business has donated more than $1 million to various charities.

The sisters are still hugely passionate about the business but admit working together hasn’t always been easy.

Hannah says they had some “growing pains” initially as they attempted to work out who should do what within the business. They brought in a mediation expert to facilitate personal development and say the experience was invaluable, as it helped them better understand their own personalities and communication styles, and look at how they coped under pressure and resolved conflict.

“Whenever Hannah and I get on our Instagram account and the audience know they are talking to us, the most frequently asked question is ‘do you fight all the time?’,’’ Rachel, 28, says.

“It’s fun to answer, the journey has definitely been a long one – early on we butted heads so much, just figuring out who was doing what. But we did a lot of self development, and it was one of the best things, not only for the business but for us as well. At a young age most people are not pushed to work on themselves, and it was really eye opening.

“I’d often thought we were quite similar but we’re actually quite different, we complement each other … thank goodness we strive at different things, we don’t cross into each other’s lanes too much, we empower each other to do the best we can.’’

Hannah, who has two young children, says the hardest thing has been establishing boundaries between home and work.

“It has caused a lot of tension over the years,’’ she admits.

“Because obviously we love the business and we love to talk about it. I had a baby four years ago, and we kind of had a conscious conversation to let’s try and be sisters again and not talk about business. And it was really beautiful and helped out sister relationship, having those boundaries.’’

But naturally work still creeps into the conversation.

“I feel like 90 per cent of our sister relationship is talking about business, it’s a blurred line we’re not angry about,’’ Rachel laughs.

“People say ‘you guys are so obsessed with each other’. Our husbands say they’ve never met two people who are so joined at the hip. Clear boundaries are never going to exist, but we’re definitely more aware of it.’’

HENRY AND ANNA TERRY

They became household names when they appeared together on reality cooking series My Kitchen Rules in 2018 – a challenging high-pressure experience in the glaring public spotlight guaranteed to put even the strongest family relationships to the test.

But Henry and Anna Terry sailed through the experience relatively unscathed as they are far from your typical siblings – they consider themselves to be “best friends” and say there are none of the sibling squabbles you might see in other families.

They grew up at Deloraine – where they still farm truffles and run farm tours as part of the Tasmanian Truffles business they operate – and have always loved spending time together.

Anna describes herself as a tomboy growing up and says she and Henry were always riding motorbikes, fishing or playing cricket and were “very happy to coexist’’. They remained close when they went to boarding school and transitioned into adulthood.

“We’ve got along pretty well most of our lives,’’ Anna, 30, says.

“I don’t ever feel like there’s been a time where we’ve ever been not keen to hang out. It has never been ‘get out of my room, get out of my space’ – we’ve just always enjoyed hanging out in each other’s company.’’

Going into My Kitchen Rules they made a pact if their relationship was compromised in any way they would walk away from the show.

“Doing something like that you spend so much intense time together, more time than we ever predicted,’’ Anna says.

“We were with each other 24 hours a day, we were filming for six or seven months … all you’ve got (is each other) because you’re cut off from rest of the world. It’s an experience that is going to make or break you, really. We knew going into it that what we had was very special. We agreed going on the show that if our relationship was compromised we’d walk away. Luckily for us we didn’t have to. There were parts that were pretty hard … it was mentally tough. I have absolutely no doubt I would not have been able to do that with anyone else or would not have come out the other end with anyone else.’’

She says people often don’t believe that a brother and sister could be such close friends, or run a successful business together.

“People say ‘how the hell do you do it?’,’’ Anna says.

“They say ‘Oh, you couldn’t pay me to spend that much time with my sibling’. Or they say ‘is that really real, surely that can’t be right?’

“At school people would say ‘my sister’s so annoying’ or ‘my brother’s so gross’ but Henry and I were different. Henry has picked up the pieces of my heart off the floor. He was always the first person in my younger days to call when I was going through heartache.

Whatever life threw at us, if I needed to talk to someone, then that’s the first person I’d go to and vice versa.

“We’ve sort of nursed each other through some rough stuff; that stays with you … there’s that strong underlying bond, we’ve been in the trenches a bit for each other.’’

Henry, 32, studied agricultural science and attempted to pursue a career as a professional cricketer before changing tack and returning to the family farm.

Meanwhile Anna trained and worked as a dietitian but missed being on the farm, which she describes as her “happy place”.

In addition to farming and harvesting truffles, producing a range of truffle products and running farm tours, the siblings have a new food van at Salamanca Market serving truffle toasties and ice cream.

Henry says he and Anna are “extraordinarily similar in some ways and very different in others’’.

He says the siblings always accept each other for who they are, and support each other through the ups and downs of life, which has strengthened their bond.

Anna describes Henry as “incredibly patient” and says they each bring different strengths to the business.

“We both recognise that we are different operators,’’ she says.

“We manage time differently and have different priorities as well. I don’t have a secret formula or anything … it just works. I have a huge amount of respect for Henry as a human and a businessman. We’re sort of yin and yang in a lot of ways, it sort of comes together really nicely. I wouldn’t have thought running a business alongside Henry would have been on cards to be honest, but it works well, we’re very lucky.’’