Berlin???

[LaWillowPetite]

DH has been offered a job in Berlin. He is Australian, I am German but from another part of the country -teeny tiny village in the North-- hence don't know much about Berlin.

What is it like? What are school like and the city itself? Is it as big and busy as London?

We have three dc 2, 5 and 8. They are bilingual.

Can you recommend areas to live in?

Thank you

Lived there for four years from 2004 to 2008. Absolutely loved it. Nothing like London - very easy to drive around and publish transport very accessible with a pushchair. Can’t advise on schools as my two were at the French school which at that time was in Wittenau. We lived near there on the edge of the Steinberg Park - great for the kids with woods and a lake. Had friends in Frohnau, Tegel, Hermsdorf - lots of great family houses with gardens. Still miss it and kids say it was the best place they ever lived. Lucky you.

We only recently moved away from Berlin after having lived there for several years with our children. Also in one of the leafy "Quartiere" in Reinickendorf that LillianGish mentions. As much as I appreciate the variety that a large city such as Berlin has to offer, I am at heart rather conservative and would not have been happy within the S-Bahn-Ring, that became increasingly more grubby and stressful in the last years.
Before you decide on where to live you need to ask yourself whether you want your children educated in the German system, if you want to go down the international route or are looking at a combination of both; state, private or maybe even a faith school. Everything is available in Berlin. Try out the search function on this forum, I believe a lot of the information written in the past years is still valid today, at least with regard to the Nelson Mandela school and the other state bilingual schools. Most of my children attended a faith school (Bekenntnisschule), one was in a bilingual stream of a state grammar school (Gymnasium), which we were very happy with. If I were moving to Berlin today with children of nursery and primary school age I would take a very close look at any potential school before deciding. Read through the education articles of the Tagesspiegel for an idea of what is going on.
I am going to assume that you will be renting in Berlin. Will your husband's employer be contributing towards the rent? How high is your budget? Berlin is no longer the cheap and affordable place it used to be ten years ago, so you need to keep that in mind as well.