Freed hostage Joshua says children adapting to first true home

"We have reached the first true home that the children have ever known after they spent most of Friday asking if each subsequent airport was our new house hopefully," Boyle told CBC, after a day of travel that included flights to London and then Toronto.

Boyle's US-born wife, Caitlan Coleman, gave birth to the children while they were being held by guards in the Haqqani network, a group closely tied to the Taliban.

"We know nothing is instant but after five years, it's so difficult to accept that everything isn't magically perfect just because you're no longer being brutalised," Boyle said.

In response to emailed questions, Boyle told CBC how his three children were reacting to freedom.

He said the eldest child, Najaeshi Jonah, 4, is "exuberant; honestly freedom seems to have cured half his ills instantly, he's running around examining all the gifts compiled over the years."

The Boyle family arrived in Smiths Falls, Ont., with his parents, Linda and Patrick Boyle, early Saturday morning after a transatlantic flight beginning in Pakistan, before flying from Heathrow Airport to Pearson International Airport in Toronto. Before Boyle and his wife were abducted, they had been living in Perth-Andover, NB.

Boyle and his pregnant wife embarked on a hiking trip through Central Asia more than five years ago. They visited several countries before ending up in Afghanistan, where Boyle has said they were helping "ordinary villagers" in Taliban-occupied territory.