SYDNEY – Second generation Greek-Australian siblings Niko and Alana Pappas were the youngest contestants, at 19 and 21 respectively, and first to be eliminated on Australia’s Amazing Race this season, but they made sure to remember the sacrifices made by their Greek immigrant grandparents, Huffpost Australia reported.

“It was our grandparents who came from Greece at 18 years old with literally nothing,” Alana, an arts degree student from South Australia, told HuffPost Australia on October 29.

“They had to muster all their money to get over here. They had to work in factories. My mum – her whole family were cleaners and my mum actually had to help as a teenager and kid, cleaning primary schools and that sort of thing.”

The sacrifices and struggles to provide a better future for their children and grandchildren are like so many Greek families of the diaspora. Alana told HuffPost that “her parents were conscientious about providing a comfortable lifestyle for her, Niko and their older sister Maria.”

“They [my grandparents] had it really tough and the fact that our parents worked so hard from that upbringing, they worked hard so they could get jobs that would put us through private school,” said Alana, HuffPost reported.

“It just means so much to us. We wish we won the money so we could thank them in some sort of way.”

A viewing party was kept small as Niko told HuffPost, “We would’ve had a big viewing party if we didn’t get eliminated but because we did so quickly, we wanted it intimate.”

“Dad was saying if we made it further he would’ve had a massive lamb on the spit, all the family around, all the cousins,” Alana said, HuffPost reported.