The “observable” universe is kinda tricky to explain, but I’ll try. The farthest things we can see are the things whose light took this long to reach us (ie: since creation / big bang). They are, of course, very, very far away.
Anything further out than that and the light hasn’t reached us yet, but it might some day. It is impossible for us to know if there is anything beyond the observable universe because no radiation (light or otherwise) could have reached us yet.
Smartest answer yet posted! The "observable" universe is like someone who never left their house but viewed silent movies from 1918 believing that is how cities look like. All time dependent, and giving false ideas of reality.
There could be super-highways with alien commuting spaceships a billion light years away, but we're observing the barren space devoid of what may have been built, and would need to wait a billion years to see the evidence! Heck, there could be civilizations 1000 light years away waving banners at us and sending radio signals, but we won't know, as we'll be long dead before anyone notices.
It's a futile attempt, this looking for other civilizations. We need to focus on civilizing democrats and other miscreants, because if they spread then we won't find civilized life here on Earth.