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One area in which I am feeling the loss of having extended family after becoming estranged from mine is that I have no other source of practical support, and without family to help with babysitting it seems like it is going to be impossible to ever be able to do something like go for a weekend getaway with my H without the kids.

Does anyone have any practical suggestions on how to get quality time with my H away from the kids with no extended family to help? Also any tips would be appreciated on how to not let it get to me knowing that my sister, who acted essentially as a second mom for my nieces, is deliberately withholding similar support from me (she has told me that she is not willing to have a relationship with me unless I patch things up with my abusive brother -- something I have zero control over since he has rejected the olive branch I extended). For some reason this really, really bothers me even though it's probably irrational on my part. In reality, I probably should be relieved that my children will not get close to someone like her since there is a very real danger that she would attempt to turn then against me, but somehow I am not comforted by this thought. I also feel like I sort of brought this upon myself by not being "tactical" enough, and disclosing to her that having my kids be part of an extended family was something very important for me. It's like I just handed her the bullets to shoot me with. :/

When I was living in another province, away from all my family system, I found a nanny. But not any nanny. A nanny that wasn't 20 years old.  :( She was 50yo and basically adopted my daughter as her own granddaughter, and we got very close. She worked for our family, part-time, for about 2 years until we had to move away. It was the same cost as day-care here, and very much worth it, because we had help "on call", and my daughter got so much "grandmotherly" love. And honestly... even though I am back here, with my in-laws near... I miss her so much... because she was completely safe, both to me and to my children, which my mother in-law isn't, as I am slowly discovering.

So... I'd recommend maybe looking into nannies. Or maybe an older sitter, if you don't need someone part-time (for afterschool care for example). Here, a lot of students at the university do baby-sitting on the side to get a bit of money. They are old enough that you can trust their judgment at that point... And if you reuse the same one over and over again, and takes some time to speak with her while she works, then trust builds up and at some point, she can stay overnight during a week end too.

Another one of my friend was lucky to get close to another family that had children the same age... Both were far from their extended family so they could "exchange weekends" once in a while. One family would get all the kids one week-end, and the other family would get them the other week-end. Not all the time obviously, but they would get together enough that the children would be comfortable with both set of parents, and know them well. So, wouldn't cost anything, and both families would get some much needed time "off" to connect with their significant other. 

I raised mine without extended family. My in laws lived too far away to do that. We had no other family around.

We didn't go away for overnight or weekends. We just didn't have that kind of help nearby to do that. I did several babysitters we could call on. One resource is if there's a local college or junior college nearby. We also had local high school students who were reliable. We felt these sitters were too young for us to leave with the kids overnight but we did go to dinner, or to a movie.

We didn't have the kind of freedom we saw with friends who did have extended family to help but we understood our circumstances. So one doesn't have to be NC to not have family around. We just did what we could with the situation we had.

Some people do child care exhanges with their friends. I know two families in my city who have no extended family in the area. They see each other frequently and take each other's children from time to time.