Tradygirl - What a fun opportunity! I can't speak to living oversees as an adult or to doing it in this day and age, but I will tell you that my dad (who was a professor at the time) did a sabbatical year teaching in The Netherlands when I was in kindergarten. Obviously my memories are not wholly reliable since I was young and it was many years ago, but it was definitely a good experience and one not many people have (other than the military as far as I know)...
Sometimes when companies move people around, they have the families do a house swap - I don't recall whether that was the issue when I was young, but I do recall living in a 4th floor walk-up flat, letting a bucket down for the guy who came by selling bread, playing on the frozen canals in winter, traveling through other European countries on long weekends and so on and so forth. Most Europeans are taught English starting very young, so getting by without knowing the language is not a big deal in many places (this is truer in Northern European countries more so than southern ones I think). My dad learned "gas station" Dutch; my mom learned "grocery store" Dutch, and my sister learned a bit more (she went to a school where teachers used English for her). I became fairly fluent since my parents sent me to a different school where I had to learn the language in a sink or swim situation. I've since been told I picked up some German words traveling through that area as well since the languages are similar...
I think the pet thing can be harder to decipher since there are regulations concerning putting pets in quarantine for some amount of time on either end I believe...
I have a friend whose family moved to Switzerland for a year or so for work - she had 3 kids ages approx. 6 and under at the time, and as far as I know, she considers it to have been a great experience. Most of her "regrets" to the degree she has any at all - have to do with having had another family use her home for the year she was gone and so forth. Kids are pretty flexible - and even those who like structure and routine would probably adjust just fine after a period of time.
Anyway, I look back on it as having been a great experience - although I wish I had been a bit older so that I remembered more of it. My memories are more of the "I know we did it since there are pictures but I don't really remember it firsthand" variety... as I said we did travel, and I think my parents used the times when the grandparents came to take off on longer trips (Eastern Europe in the 1970s, LOL, Greece etc)... I also know that we went over to Europe on one of the QE ships (who knows which one) which was an experience in and of itself) - and that we flew home with grandparents while my parents traveled through the-then USSR.
I'm rambling a bit, but I guess I'm saying that I wouldn't let the kiddies hold you back, unless it's medically complicated (like needing therapy for autism or speech, or maybe diabetes or something where the services might be hard to get or the language nuances might be a bigger issue)...
