Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your balloon analogy is almost correct but it's missing one important piece. In that analogy, the surface of the balloon itself is the entire universe. It is a two-dimensional universe. Imagine that there is no other space except for that surface of the balloon. No emptiness inside and no space outside that it's "expanding into". The entire space is the infinitesimally thin surface which is the balloon surface, yet i…
But what's filling the space between the dots? Is it new space? If I have a long ass string, is the string gradually getting longer, or will it break apart?
Unfortunately, it doesn't answer your more fundamental question of "if I make 2 marks in space, and then those expand apart, what is in the new space, and how do I know they really are farther apart?"
I have never heard a good description of this on human scales, only at stellar and galactic scales.