Been here 3 years and will stay for another few years, if not longer. Overall we love it here, as a family we are happy and work for me is going great, DH is a fab SAHD.
But..... I’ve struggled to make friends, and I can’t help but think it’s because I work. We know some other English speaking families who seem to be pretty close to each other, and DH sees the blokes socially quite frequently through a hobby. All their kids go to the same school in the next village to us and all the wives are SAHMs so have lots of time for each other so hang out a lot, help each other with child care, pop for a coffee, run/gym together, have play dates etc. I’ve seen newcomers settle quickly because they’ve met other English speakers and expat parents at the school. One of my DCs class has very lovely parents, but Sod’s law there are no expat kids, so whilst the local parents are nice, they have their social circles and don’t really want to hang out with foreigners plus there is a language barrier too.
So I feel like there’s a lot working against me - I have a busy senior role and little spare time, minimal opportunities for friends at my DC’s school, and zero time to mingle with the other expat wives. DH is good at meeting people but doesn’t want to go and have coffee with the mums, and as they are all located around the other school, it’s not as logistically natural anyway.
We get invited to BBQs, parties etc but I always feel like encroaching on an existing group of pals (which I am). They are all very nice and we get on, but I’m also not include in lots of things because I suspect I’m just not at the forefront of their minds because I can’t invest the same amount of time as they can. It’s like this is the trade-off for having a career (that I enjoy).
I have some great colleagues and we go for drinks regularly etc but it stops there.
I also feel distant from my friends back home. We keep in touch but I’m not there obviously so not part of that either.
So I feel like I’m floating between different groups but not really in any of them 
We’ll host a bbq when all the Coronavirus stuff is over and maybe that will help, but we can’t do that every weekend and I feel that it’s seeing people regularly which reinforces friendships. So without the ad hoc hang outs in the week, I feel like I’m never going to have close pals again!