It is really very hard. My daughter emigrated to Australia 10 years ago and now has 2 children. We decided to retire here at great cost to ourselves as my son was also going to emigrate. We so much looked forward to staring a new life with our family nearby. We came over earlier when DH was made redundant and first GD was due. We were lucky enough to spend 4 years with them before work took SIL away and they went to Africa 'for a few years' in order to earn enough money to get their own house. We ended up moving to live near my sister as we needed to buy our own place and nearly moved back to the UK especially as son decided not to come over to Australia and is now in Europe. Daughter and family have now come back to Australia but are still in a mining town in another state, 5,000 miles away.
We are devastated and we really miss them, in particular grandchildren and especially now where DH has been diagnosed with a serious illness. Skype is not the same. Oldest GD always says she misses us and I cry buckets after each session. We keep waiting for them to settle to a normal life, but there is no guarantee that they will move to where we are and moving house is very expensive here and if we moved to be near them again there is no guarantee they will not move on again.
We also miss our son in Europe and keep asking ourselves how did we end up like this? This is not the life we thought we would have here. We have thought of maybe going back to the UK, but then would have to endure the long journey to see G,. although at least we would be nearer our son, but who says he won't move away.
We sometimes wish we had never come over, Australia does not feel like home and does not offer us the things we like to do such as walking in the countryside and having a lovely garden, all of which we sacrificed to come here to be with our family but what's the point if they are not here? The only saving grace is that DH is getting better medical treatment here than he would in UK so it looks like we are stuck.
I sit and cry as we miss them so much. We do try to get out and I have joined a few groups, but it all just seems like displacement activity. It is very difficult to just 'get on with it' We are getting older and who know how much more we will be able to see them, especially with DH illness.