section_path: Personal life
section_name: Personal life
paragraph_text: Personal life
  
  Stoltenberg is married to diplomat Ingrid Schulerud and they have two children: a son, Axel Stoltenberg (born 1989) who is studying Chinese at the Shanghai Jiaotong University and daughter Anne Catharina Stoltenberg (born 1992) who is a part of Smerz, an experimental pop and electronic music duo signed to XL Recordings.
  
  He has one living sister, Camilla, a medical researcher and administrator who is one year older than he; and one late sister, Nini, four years younger, who died in 2014. Nini was a recovering heroin addict, and the Norwegian media have covered the family's efforts to cope with this challenge.
  
  He prefers to spend his summer vacations at his family's cottage on the Hvaler Islands in the Oslofjord. An avid outdoorsman, he rides his bike often and during the winter season he is an active cross-country skier. In December 2011, in order to mark 100 years since Roald Amundsen reached the south pole on skis, Stoltenberg journeyed to Antarctica.
  
  Although being portrayed as an atheist for most of his adult life, and declining membership in the formerly official Church of Norway, Stoltenberg has stated that he does not consider himself an atheist. He explained: "Although I am not a member of any denomination, I do believe that there is something greater than man. Some call it God, others call it something else. For me, it's about understanding that we humans are small in relation to nature, in relation to the powers that are bigger and stronger than man can ever comprehend. I find that in a church."