For anyone interested. I got around this by declaring no title bar in the theme and adding the title bar to the main activity; and using a viewpager with fragments. So that the "title bar" is always visible.
New Style file
<style name="AppTheme" parent="android:Theme.Light.NoTitleBar">
<item name="android:windowTitleSize">35sp</item>
<item name="android:dropDownListViewStyle">@style/MyDropDownListView</item>
<item name="android:buttonStyle">@style/My.Button</item>
</style>
The New activity_main.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
android:orientation="vertical"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:id="@+id/mainView">
<include layout="@layout/titlebar"/>
<android.support.v4.view.ViewPager
android:id="@+id/contentViewPager"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:layout_weight="1" />
</LinearLayout>
Thanks for the effort guys.