Repeat WP Query loop twice - php

Question

I have a related posts slider but currently there is not enough posts to actually slide. The design is such that it's not a simple case of displaying the posts but not sliding them until there is more.
As a short term solution, I am trying to find a way to loop through the posts twice to give the appearance of an infinite loop.
I am using slick slider and initially tried the settings:
infinite: true,
loop: true
but I can't get it to work even though apparently that should do the trick.
I am now trying to just pull through the posts twice
I have tried adjusting the count to things like
$count+1;
$count = 2
$count+=5;
All sorts of variations but I think I am way off base.
I would appreciate any help or a point in the right documentation. I have been reading about iterations but I can't grasp how they would be included in this as I had help with this from another developer.
<div class="log-book-carousel">
<?php
$current_page_id = get_the_ID();
$args = [
'posts_per_page' => '6',
'post__not_in' => [$current_page_id]
];
$the_query = new WP_Query( $args ); ?>
<?php
// Start our WP Query
while ($the_query -> have_posts()) : $the_query -> the_post();
// Display the Post Title with Hyperlink
?>
<div class="slides match-height">
<a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" title="Read more of the blog post '<?php the_title_attribute(); ?>'">
<?php if (has_post_thumbnail()) : ?>
<div class="log-book-slider-image">
<?php the_post_thumbnail(); ?>
</div>
<?php endif; ?>
<div class="log-book-details-wrapper white-bg">
<h3 class="black log-title"><?php the_title(); ?></h3>
<div class="log-book-slider-excerpt ">
<p class="log-book-text"><?php sew_display_post_intro_block( $post->ID, 10 ); ?></p>
</div>
</div>
</a>
</div>
<?php
$count++;
endwhile;
wp_reset_postdata();
?>
</div>