Right, I get ya. The observatory hasn't been traveling anywhere as such, it's just been in orbit around the Sun. It's not really any closer to Kepler than we are here. The reason for sending it 'up there' wasn't to get closer to anything of interest, it was because space observatories have big advantages over Earth based observatories for a number of reasons. It can do it's job much better up there than it could down here.
So since it's mission began, it's been looking at a small part of the milky way that is of interest and logging planets that it discovers. Thousands to date I believe wi