Star formation regions in the solar neighborhood are the only places where we can resolve processes like gas cloud formation and dispersal, or stellar evolution, in great detail. The youngest stars found in active stellar nurseries are arguably the best tracers of their parent cloud motion. However, shrouded by gas and dust, they are missing from astrometric surveys like Gaia. To measure their motions and investigate the coupling to their natal cloud we instead have to turn to, e.g.,  infrared wavelengths. 
In this talk, I will first give an overview of the ESO public survey VISIONS, which aims to provide proper motions for embedded young stellar objects (YSOs), complimentary to Gaia. Then I will demonstrate the successful derivation of infrared YSO proper motions and investigation of the kinematics of stars and gas in a pilot study of the NGC 2024 cluster, located at d~400 pc in the Orion B molecular cloud. Lastly, I will offer an outlook on the broader context of star formation in the solar neighbourhood, using recent findings from the star formation group in Vienna.