My sister Beth and I had never spent two weeks alone together in our entire lives.

Not as kids. Not as adults. Never.

We live 3,000 miles apart—I'm in Florida, she's in Washington—and while we're close, we've always been close in the context of phone calls and visits with husbands and kids around.

So when we started planning a trip to Europe together, just the two of us for two full weeks, we honestly weren't sure how it would go.

Would we drive each other crazy? Would we run out of things to talk about? Would we be compatible as travel companions?

The whole idea started almost a year ago when I was visiting her and we were looking through some of my mom's old photos—pictures from when she immigrated to Canada (and later the U.S.) from Holland as an eight-year-old girl right after World War II.

Our relationship with our mom has been complicated over the years, but these past ten years have been a gift of finally having the relationship with her we always wanted. And through that, we've both become fascinated by her story—this little girl who left everything she knew behind and started over in a new country.

Looking at those photos, we thought, "How amazing would it be to actually go there? To see where she came from? To walk the streets she walked as a child?"

And then, when Beth’s daughter Kara began planning her wedding to be held in Italy this summer, we realized we had the perfect opportunity. After the family celebration, we could send our husbands home and take off on our own adventure.

So that's what we did.

And it was magic.

Honestly, we couldn’t have been more compatible. Our energy matched. Our interests aligned. We wanted to go to bed early and wake up ready to explore. We could spend just the right amount of time in a museum before getting restless. We'd think the same things at the same moment.

"I'll have what she's having" became our inside joke because we kept ordering the same drinks, buying the same clothes, wanting to do the same things.

Two full weeks, 24 hours a day, and not one moment of irritation between us.

We traveled through Switzerland, Spain, and Portugal—all incredible—but Holland was our final destination. The place that would connect us to our Dutch heritage and our mom's story.

And it was everything we hoped for and more.

We found our mom's childhood home. We discovered the church she'd described to us so many times. And then, in the most surreal moment of the whole trip, we met a cousin we never knew existed—a man who pulled out the exact same homemade genealogy book that our mom has at home.

It was so cool to feel so connected to our past.

But honestly? The most unexpected gift wasn't finding our mom's house or meeting our long-lost cousin, as amazing as those moments were.

It was discovering this whole new dimension of my relationship with Beth.

I worried that we might get sick of each other, but if anything those two weeks showed me there were depths to our connection I'd never experienced before.

We've each been back home for a week now, and we've talked or texted every single day. Sometimes it’s a quick “I just found these cute jeans on sale, you should get them too.” (She did, of course.) Sometimes it’s a full recap of whatever happened that day. And we’re already trying to figure out when and where we can get together next.

Someone once said, "We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next, to find ourselves." Along those same lines, Marcel Proust wrote that "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes."

In other words? Sometimes you have to go far away to discover what was right there all along.

I don't know when—or if—we'll ever get to do something like this again. 

But I do know that I’m incredibly grateful.

The word I chose at the beginning of this year was “restore,” and I truly felt like this trip was a culmination of a big shift that has been happening in my life for a while now.

For a while now, I've been saying I want to slow down, be more present, prioritize what matters most. But it took removing myself entirely—getting on a plane, spending a month in a completely different place with completely different rhythms—to actually feel what that looks like.

This trip didn't just give me incredible memories and a deeper connection to my sister and my family history.

It reminded me of what matters.

Since I’ve been home, I’m finding myself moving through my days differently. Slower. Sleeping later. Baking sourdough bread. Watching the sunrise with my husband while we drink our morning coffee. Playing board games and connecting with friends.

For the first time ever, I haven’t felt the need to rush right back into the daily grind, or to dive right back into work.

I don't know if this slower pace will last forever. 

But I hope it does. 

Because you only get one life.

And I guess maybe that’s my challenge for you this week too—to embrace those tiny moments, and the chance to connect with the people you love most.

Live with purpose, friend, and have an amazing week!

xoxo, Ruth

P.S. There is SO much more I could have shared about our trip, and especially about our special time in Holland. If you’re interested in seeing and hearing more, we created an Instagram account just to document our trip together, which you can find HERE.

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