  Gas flows in and out of galaxies through their circumgalactic medium (CGM)
are poorly constrained and direct observations of this faint, diffuse medium
remain challenging. We use a sample of five $z$ $\sim$ 1-2 galaxy counterparts
to Damped Lyman-$\alpha$ Absorbers (DLAs) to combine data on cold gas, metals
and stellar content of the same galaxies. We present new HST/WFC3 imaging of
these fields in 3-5 broadband filters and characterise the stellar properties
of the host galaxies. By fitting the spectral energy distribution, we measure
their stellar masses to be in the range of log($M_*$/$\text{M}_{\odot}$) $\sim$
9.1$-$10.7. Combining these with IFU observations, we find a large spread of
baryon fractions inside the host galaxies, between 7 and 100 percent.
Similarly, we find gas fractions between 3 and 56 percent. Given their star
formation rates, these objects lie on the expected main sequence of galaxies.
Emission line metallicities indicate they are consistent with the
mass-metallicity relation for DLAs. We also report an apparent anti-correlation
between the stellar masses and $N$(HI), which could be due to a dust bias
effect or lower column density systems tracing more massive galaxies. We
present new ALMA observations of one of the targets leading to a molecular gas
mass of log($M_{\rm mol}$/$\text{M}_{\odot}$) < 9.89. We also investigate the
morphology of the DLA counterparts and find that most of the galaxies show a
clumpy structure and suggest ongoing tidal interaction. Thanks to our high
spatial resolution HST data, we gain new insights in the structural complexity
of the CGM.
