Michelle Obama talks how she and Barack spend time as empty nesters

Michelle Obama opened up about her time at home with husband Barack Obama, the former President of the US. The former first lady sat down with Oprah Winfrey on her WW 2020 Vision: Your Life in Focus tour at the Barclays Center in New York, on Saturday.

The former FLOTUS talked about how she and Barack Obama spend time at home now that both their daughters Malia, 21, and Sasha, 18, are off at college. Malia is in her third year at Harvard University, while sister Sasha began her freshman year last fall.

Michelle Obama said that her life is "so good" as an empty nester with Barack. "Parenting takes up a lot of emotional space ... I put a lot of time and energy into parenting these girls but right now we are trying to make their lives normal — so that means weekends were a pain," the 56-year-old added, as reported by People.

The bestselling author said that when the girls were home, as parents, they had to "worry about what parties they were going to, whether there was alcohol, I had to know who the parents were, so every weekend for me was hard."

"And they're gone, thank God," Michelle joked. She added that the girls were just like other girls and as a parent, she had to "get information about what they were doing or not doing just like everybody else," which "takes some energy."

"All that energy I can now place back on me and spending time figuring out my next chapter, how I want to spend the rest of my life," Michelle said with the girls now off to college. "We have more emotional time, emotional energy," she said of her empty nest with Barack, 58.

The Obama couple live with their pet dogs Bo and Sunny. In October this year the former first couple will celebrate their 28th wedding anniversary. Michelle told Winfrey how she and Barack see each other again. "Now I can look at him and recognize my husband, he's still the man I fell in love with," the former FLOTUS added.

Michelle's memoir "Becoming" is a bestseller. The couple's production company, Higher Ground Productions, got its first Oscars nomination for the Netflix documentary, "American Factory".