Sparks Flew at Uluru — We Found Love in the Outback

From that point on, Michael and I emailed nearly every day.

The couple celebrating Australia Day in 2010. (Photo: Kirra Schulze)

In my head I knew that a long-distance relationship was less than ideal. But my heart was drawn to Michael, and as we know, the heart always wins.  Three months later, Michael got a month off from school and decided to buy a plane ticket to visit me in Australia.

He arrived on New Years Eve and stayed with me for an entire month. Very quickly we realized that this was the real deal. He was the person I wanted to be with, and we started having conversations about how we were going to make it work.

We made our relationship official, and when Michael returned home we talked every day using email, Skype, and phone conversations to keep in contact. Still, it was hard to be in a relationship with a person who was half a world away. 

We kept going this way for about six months, and that fall I went to visit Michael and his family in Germany. Then in April 2011, we met up in Asia and had a honeymoon-like vacation in Thailand. It was basically a halfway point for us, and we spent three weeks relaxing on the beach, swimming in the pool, shopping, and riding elephants.

Michael finished his Masters in August of that year, and decided to move to Australia. Finally, we were going to live in the same place!

Related: They Took a 365-Day Honeymoon Around the World

On their wedding day with Abby and Marcus. (Photo: Kirra Schulze)

On March 9, 2012, I was in the front garden watering the plants when Michael walked up with a guilty look on his face. He was so nervous and kept fidgeting with his back pocket. I’m always suspicious of things I’m not in control of, so I started questioning Michael who, as it turns out, was attempting to make a romantic proposal. Eventually, he worked up the nerve and asked me to marry him as our neighbors looked on. 

Exactly one year later, we were married in Adelaide in front group of 40 friends and family. It was a perfect day.

Michael is a mechanical engineer, and the job market in Australia wasn’t the best for his line of work, so we decided that Germany would be a better place for us to build our life together. But first we went on an epic honeymoon.

A reindeer selfie on their honeymoon in Finland. (Photo: Kirra Schulze)

We spent five days in Budapest before heading up to Finland to do a tour of the arctic. We saw the northern lights, slept in a glass igloo, and visited father Christmas before spending the holidays with his family in Germany.

Up next was a lovely trip to Malaysia, after which I headed back to Adelaide and Michael went to Germany to find a new job and set up a home. I joined him four months later. 

Over the past couple of years we’ve moved around, started new jobs, and traveled a lot. In fact, since moving to Europe we’ve been to Eurovision in Denmark, Oktoberfest in Munich, a food tour in Portugal, and trips to England and Athens. We’ve been moving fast, but for the first time in our lives, we don’t have any plans for the upcoming months. We plan on staying in the same place for a while, and honestly, we’re looking forward to being a little boring 

Maybe we’ll get a dog. Who knows? As long as we’re together, the sky is the limit.

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