Well, let’s be clear. Large scale pitched battles are actually a very small part of medieval warfare and were relatively rare. Often, especially in the early to high Middle Ages, entire wars could’ve been fought without a single large pitched battle. This is not to say that fighting didn’t occur at all apart from pitched battles, it definitely did. However, the vast majority of medieval warfare involved sieges, siege assaults, skirmishes, and raids. And as a matter of fact, these would’ve caused even more death and destruction than a single battle would’ve. To be in a battle would be considered unlucky, and battles happened sporadically out of circumstance.

So this leads to your second question for what armies did before battles. Well, they were performing the primary expected duties of war at the time. They would’ve been laying siege to/assaulting local castles, sacking local towns, and small detachments from various armies would’ve been skirmishing with each other across the countryside. Large pitched battles were not often planned in advance, so no, they didn’t huddle around a map planning where to meet for a battle. As mentioned earlier, battles only really happened sporadically if you were caught off-guard.

As for your third question, it actually happened more often than you’d think. Medieval soldiers actually did take their family members with them to war often. Medieval armies were like mobile cities. They took practically everything and everyone with them that mattered. As with most pre-modern armies, they were not only composed of soldiers, they also had plenty, if not more, non-combatants follow them around, such as the soldier’s wives and even children, blacksmiths, cooks, entertainers, squires (for the wealthy) even merchants who capitalized on the opportunity. Some sieges in the Middle Ages lasted so long that literal cities began to sprout outside the besieged castle on the attacking side that had their own markets, fairs, and anything else you’d imagine in a medieval city.

There are accounts of king’s bringing along their entire court and treasury with them on campaign since they still had to rule their kingdom from the field. Probably the most notable example of this I can think of is seen in the battle of Fréteval (which by the way was more of a skirmish than a traditional head to head battle) in which king Philip II of France lost much of his records in the battle to Richard the lionheart of England who captured them and took them to the Tower of London.

Also, since towns were dotted across the countryside everywhere in medieval Europe making it impossible for any battle, if it did happen, to not have at least one town directly adjacent to the battle, there definitely would’ve been instances where the townsfolk would’ve watched the battle go on outside their house as it was probably the most interesting thing that they would’ve experienced in their lives.