Separating Luke and Leia was a hard thing to do. Padme would understand they stood a better chance apart. Life is full of shitty decisions that you make. Luke was loved by Owen and Beru, he had his own speeder and a skyhopper and he didn’t starve.
This all came about because Lucas wanted to tie up the “other” storyline and the Han/Luke/Leia triangle very neatly. Which makes no sense, because the other was captured by Vader when Luke went to save her.