pentaho set up to AWS Aurora ( mysql ) bastion

I am trying to setup pentaho spoon to connect to AWS auora which on a vpn in AWS. I have access to AWS auora ( mysql ) through a bastion server. It is working with mysql workbench and a simple java program. Connection conn = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/estimates", "root", "xxxxxxx"); Statement stmt = conn.createStatement(); String strSelect = "select first from test_name";

        ResultSet rset = stmt.executeQuery(strSelect);
        int rowCount = 0;
        while (rset.next()) {  
            String first = rset.getString("first");
            System.out.println(first);
            ++rowCount;
        }

with pentaho this error. Error connecting to database [t1] : org.pentaho.di.core.exception.KettleDatabaseException: Error occured while trying to connect to the database

Exception while loading class org.gjt.mm.mysql.Driver

org.pentaho.di.core.exception.KettleDatabaseException: Error occured while trying to connect to the database

Exception while loading class org.gjt.mm.mysql.Driver

at org.pentaho.di.core.database.Database.normalConnect(Database.java:366)
at org.pentaho.di.core.database.Database.connect(Database.java:315)
at org.pentaho.di.core.database.Database.connect(Database.java:277)
at org.pentaho.di.core.database.Database.connect(Database.java:267)
at org.pentaho.di.core.database.DatabaseFactory.getConnectionTestReport(DatabaseFactory.java:86)

I have loaded the jdbc driver in the ..\data-integration\lib.

What could I be missing ? or is it a problem with this version of pentaho 4.4.0-stable ? Any clues would be helpful. I am new to java pentaho.. Many thanks in advanced