Couple were arrested for ‘real-life Home Alone’ after they left children to go on holiday at Christmas

While Macaulay Culkin's time eating ice cream and watching films might have seemed like a dream scenario for many of us as kids, the reality proved to be far more serious for nine-year-old Nicole and her little sister Diana, 4, who were at the centre of a real-life Home Alone case.

Just two years after the iconic Christmas film came out, David and Sharon Schoo were arrested after leaving their two children at home as they jetted off to Mexico for nine days.

And there were no shouts of Kevin on the flight, as it quickly came to pass that the husband and wife from Chicago had left their daughters behind on purpose so they could enjoy their holiday alone.

Although the two children didn't have to deal with any wet bandits during their time at home, they were forced to contend with extremely cold temperatures and nothing but frozen dinners to eat.

Nicole and Diana didn't have a babysitter or even an emergency phone number that they could reach their parents on, meaning they easily could have got into danger if it wasn't for a neighbour who found the kids alone.

The parents didn't even hurry back (20th Century Fox)

David Schoo, a then-45-year-old engineer, and his wife, Sharon, then 35, had headed to Mexico for nine days back in 1992, without any thought or concern for how their two young daughters would cope on their own.

While alone, Diana and Nicole simply had a note which included instructions on when to eat and when to go to bed, as well as a bunch of frozen meals and cereal.

It wasn't the first time the parents had risked it, either, with it later emerging that they had holidayed in Massachusetts for four days by themselves.

Nicole later said: "For a long time, I would feel really bad, wondering what they were doing."

After a while, the sisters clearly had had enough of being on their own and knocked on the door of their neighbour, telling them that a smoke alarm had gone off, which led the neighbour to quickly realise they'd been left home alone.

And after the fire brigade arrived, more questions were asked about their parents and their whereabouts, which saw them placed in foster care while they waited for David and Sharon to return from their trip.

The house where the kids were left over Christmas (Steve Kagan/Getty Images)

Both were charged with two felony counts of child abandonment and cruelty to children and a misdemeanour charge of child endangerment, with their case capturing national attention in the US.

Despite all the charges that were brought against the couple, which even inspired a change in the child abandonment laws in Illinois, they both received two years' probation, rather than a jail sentence.

Both Diana and Nicole were reportedly put up for adoption in the aftermath of the incident, and scrutiny around the couple soon died down.