Romance at the heart of love for new homeland

When Anna Luedi met the love of her life here, she knew Australia was destined to become her new home.

Swiss-German Anna Luedi, a teacher at St Mary's school in North Sydney, is becoming an Australian citizen. Picture: Britta Campion

Anna Luedi fell in love with Australia during family trips Down Under as a child, but it was not until she met the love of her life here that she knew it was destined to become her new home.

“We had often travelled to Australia and I loved it very much here,” the Munich native said of her childhood holidays.

“I loved the Great Barrier Reef. I loved the beaches. I loved everything about Australia so when I did my gap year, I thought it was quite a good idea to come for a few months and chill out in Australia.”

Anna Luedi and David Stanley on thier wedding day at Bellagio Lake Como, Italy.

Ms Luedi said she was enjoying a stay with an aunt in Narrabeen, on Sydney’s northern beaches, in 2009 when they went to the Dee Why RSL club where a Beatles tribute band was playing.

She saw something in the way the George Harrison stand-in moved, and musician David Stanley turned out to be the love of her life. “I fell in love so it’s tragic, ­really,” Ms Luedi, 30, said.

“It was very romantic, I suppose. I was the youngest in the crowd so it was easy to spot me but it was very sweet. Afterwards we had a quick chat and he said he wanted to show me around Sydney so we exchanged numbers.”

After a year of them travelling together in Australia and in ­Europe, Ms Luedi moved to Switzerland to study primary school teaching. “We did a lot of long distance. He came to Europe and I came back here, and so there was a lot of travelling for us that year … in the end it just became evident it would just be better for me to come here full-time,” Ms Luedi said.

After she came back in 2011, she began her bachelor of primary education degree at the Australian Catholic University, and in her studies learned about the history of Australia. She is passionate about passing on her new-found knowledge to her Year 4 students at St Mary’s Catholic Primary School in North Sydney.

“It’s a Western country where women can achieve what they want to achieve and the politics are relatively honest. People are being held accountable and it’s got a great legal system. I feel like I am very free and supported.”

While Ms Luedi is excited about calling Australia home for good, she still misses her native country at Christmas: “For me Christmas is a Christmas market and Gluhwein (mulled wine).”