[ido]

I also live in Germany! We're in Berlin and we only moved here in 2013 so we dont really care about the family/friends angle (we have no other relatives in Berlin & all of our friends here we've made in the last 7 years, so we could probably make new friends elsewhere easy enough).

You also don't have to go rural, there are plenty of mid sized towns with cheap housing prices (and often a university and/or other cultural institutes, like Halle or Cottbus).

My main concern is that while we don't really standout in Berlin, in a smaller town we will be considered more "exotic" & especially for our kids I'm afraid it will translate to mobbing in school.