COMOX -- “Do you want to go to work?” Laura asks her son between bites of his breakfast.

“Yah!” Jackson answers.

“What do you do for work?”she wonders.

Before the five-year-old answers, you should know that he and his twin Hudson have loved firefighters since they were babies.

You should also know that both their parents — Laura and Fraser — are emergency room nurses. Fraser’s been doing it for 25 years.

“This is the first time I’ve gone to work nervous or scared,” Fraser admits about working during the pandemic. “I don’t want to bring that scared feeling to (my boys).”

And the couple definitely didn’t want to bring COVID-19 home to them. So Fraser and Laura decided to send their sons to live with their grandparents — three hours a way.

“I felt like I was choosing my job over my children and that was so hard,” Laura admits. “I also knew I was protecting them.”

Laura and Fraser have spent the past six weeks working 12-hour shifts at the hospital in Victoria, while Jackson and Hudson were experiencing “firsts” in Comox, including their first time riding a biking a losing a tooth.

“It’s a little thing, but its a big thing,” Fraser says. “And we missed it.”

They were set to miss their boys’ fifth birthday too.

“We wanted to do something that was going to make it a little special,”Laura smiles.

So she asked her parents to take her boys for a walk on the weekend. There’s video of the moment. You can see Hudson and Jackson walking together. Then Jackson looks beyond his brother, and he starts realizing what’s happening. He begins running. Hudson follows. After 45-days apart, they run into their parents open arms. This embrace, the best birthday present ever.

“Its overwhelming to feel the tiny arms wrap around your neck,” Laura says.

It’s also reassuring to know they’d all done the work necessary to make this moment safe.

“This hug! It was amazing,” Fraser says, fighting back tears.

But then their reunion was interrupted by sirens.

“You could hear the squeal of excitement coming from them,” Laura says with a smile.

That’s when Jackson and Hudson realized the fire trucks were coming for them.

Comox Fire Rescue had answered the parents’ call to help turn this unprecedented time into an unforgettable birthday for the boys. Along with two trucks, the firefighters brought a pair of goodie-bags, featuring a kid-sized firefighter’s helmet.

“It’s great feeling to know you’ve made your kids happy,” Laura says.

That you’ve made a wonderful memory together, that will last far longer than the challenging weeks apart.

Which brings us back to the beginning of this story and Laura asking what the boys want to do for work. The answer, “help sick people.”

Despite their love of firefighters, what they really want to do is be a hero like their parents.