i hope this solution helps someone.. it took me some time until i “got it”. basically, if you have have a form with tabs and a sidebar that change dynamically, put the tabs and the sidebar each into a xforms:switch element and define 2 triggers to switch between them like so:
<xforms:trigger id="tab-trigger-selectTemplate">
<xforms:label>Select Template</xforms:label>
<xforms:action id="action-selectTemplate">
<xforms:revalidate-switch-case xforms:model="letter" xforms:instance="package_instance" xforms:switch="switch"/>
<xforms:toggle id="toggle-selectTemplate" xforms:case="case-selectTemplate"/>
<xforms:toggle id="toggle-selectTemplateSide" xforms:case="case-selectTemplateSide"/>
</xforms:action>
</xforms:trigger>