Pregnant during lockdown and dealing with COVID-19 deaths, Saadia Qudrat is just happy to be outdoors again.
The teacher and mother of two is now able to enjoy the sun in Western Sydney, something impossible 12 months ago when Sydney was hit with the Delta outbreak.
"It was quite challenging ... I've got a seven-year-old as well. I was doing remote learning for him, and I was also pregnant," Ms Qudrat, from Auburn, said.
"We had a lot of tragedies, a lot of deaths as well due to COVID so coping with that ... being at home and not being able to visit family."
Cases began to pile up after a Bondi limousine driver contracted the virus from customers returning from international travel.
What started off as a two week stay-at-home order for a handful of eastern Sydney suburbs, quickly progressed into a 21-day statewide lockdown, lasting 107 days.
But, it was Western Sydney that bore the brunt of restrictions, fines and deaths.
By the end of the lockdown NSW saw 439 COVID deaths, the bulk of them residents of the western suburbs.
The fines have also piled up; in Liverpool and Mount Druitt there have been $2.5 million in COVID-19 fines dolled out since June last year.
Outbreaks in Fairfield, Cumberland, Liverpool, and Canterbury-Bankstown were marked as hotspots, given strict curfews, and saw police patrolling streets in droves.
A vocal critic of the lockdown measures, former Cumberland mayor Steve Christou said Delta was "horrendous" for Western Sydney residents.
"We were treated like second-class citizens," Mr Christou said.
"We couldn't leave 5 kilometres from our homes ... And we had to witness scenes from Coogee and Bondi where people were out in their thousands every second weekend, in violation of COVID rules."
The 5-kilometre rule was put in place last August for Greater Sydney, Blue Mountains, Central Coast, Wollongong, and Shellharbour. Residents were not allowed to move beyond that for shopping, exercise, or outdoors recreation.
"We're just trying to get back to normal, people are still not in full-time work. COVID has really hurt not just my community but NSW," Mr Christou said.
Watching her son, Zach, hit a tennis ball is surreal for Fadila Kaseem, trying to return to normal.
"He's having fun, and that's really all that matters," she said.
Auburn restaurant owner Abdul Khan said recovery for his business has been slow.
"We were literally dying in lockdown ... it's alright now, slowly moving forward it's getting back to normal now," he said.
State opposition leader Chris Minns said the west had a right to feel aggrieved by last years lockdown.
"Obviously, we had the two Sydney lockdowns with different rules applying to millions of people," he said.
"We can't go back to two Sydneys ... Now we've got to make sure those booster rates continue and we keep being safe from this horrible disease."
NSW vaccination rates currently sit at 96.6 per cent for residents aged over 16, who have received one dose.
While the restrictions have ended the cases continue to add up.
In the last reporting period NSW saw 8,266 COVID-19 cases, and 21 deaths, remaining a reality for many.
Ms Qudrat feels she is recovering from her time in lockdown, but said it will not be easily forgotten.
"I"m doing much better. But this is the new normal, you can't do much about it and you've got to learn to live with it."
