My sims don't come home from university

So i was playing with my family and I moved two other sims into the house. Then I took those two sims and another sim from that family and went to university. I played for like two days and then saved and quit the game. Today when I was playing and tried to get my sims back home they just stayed at the university and I couldn't do anything with them.
I figured I'm probably totally ****. I should have saved the game when I moved those two sims to my house. But I saved it while already being at university so now the city where they've been living doesn't exist. It's like my fifth generation of sims and I really loved the family so I'm probably gonna cry my eyes out and never play the game again. Stupid me for not using the "save as..." option.
If someone has any idea what I could try to do I would be most grateful.

I think you can only go home once you finish the Semester. Not sure about that tho.

Check in your saves folder (Documents/Electronic Arts/Sims 3/Saves) and see if there's a file titled "savegamename.sims3.backup" (with the savegamename being your saved game's title). If there is, you can try renaming that file to "savegamename.sims3" and moving the other file out of the folder. This may back the game up enough to where you can get your family back. If not, let us know, there may be some other suggestions.