drush sql-sync fails
Your site doesn't look like it is bootstrapping completely. So I would suggest that you see if drush status will complete in the sites/default or sites/sitename folder. It should look something like the full output below. 

A full drush status output

Drupal version                  :  7.38                                                        
Site URI                        :  sitename.com // could be http://default if you have not set your site url                                               
Database driver                 :  mysql                                                       
Database username               :  db_user                                                        
Database name                   :  db_name                                                         
Drupal bootstrap                :  Successful                                                  
Drupal user                     :                                                              
Default theme                   :  default_theme                                                   
Administration theme            :  admin_theme                                                   
PHP executable                  :  /usr/bin/php                                                
PHP configuration               :  /etc/php5/cli/php.ini                                       
PHP OS                          :  Linux                                                       
Drush script                    :  /usr/local/bin/drush-master/drush.php                       
Drush version                   :  8.0-dev                                                     
Drush temp directory            :  /tmp                                                        
Drush configuration             :  /usr/local/bin/drush-master/drushrc.php                     
Drush alias files               :  /usr/local/bin/drush-master/includes/../aliases.drushrc.php 
Install profile                 :  install_profile                                                        
Drupal root                     :  /var/www/html/docroot                                       
Site path                       :  sites/default // Could be sites/sitename.com                                               
File directory path             :  sites/default/files // Same thing here could be sites/sitename.com/files                                                                
Private file directory path     :  /vagrant/private                                            
Temporary file directory path   :  /tmp      


To help this is my alias setup I usually use

This is what I usually use to setup my complete drush alias, it has options that most do not need but it may help someone in the future setup their drush alias that they may have not known existed. If you don't use the "path-aliases" below then you need to use "default" or whatever the "sites/sitename" folder name is named. You can see this in the example alias file from drush.

$remote_sites = '/path/to/site'; // usually /var/www/drupal-root-name
$aliases['site.dev'] = array(
  'uri' =&gt; 'sitename.com',
  'remote-host' =&gt; '{ip to remote}',
  'remote-user' =&gt; '{remote ssh user}',
  'root' =&gt; $remote_sites,
  'ssh-options' =&gt; '-p {if you ssh in on another port like 2222}',
  'path-aliases' =&gt; array(
    '%drush-script' =&gt; '/root/.composer/vendor/bin/drush', // This is so you can have multiple drush installs and use different ones on different sites.
    'php'=&gt; '/usr/local/bin/php', // Again if you have different php's for different sites.
    '%site' =&gt; 'sites/default/', // This is the important part here, it will ensure the proper bootstrap
    '%dump-dir' =&gt; '/path/to/drush.dbdumps', // This is where you want to dump your databases, normally /tmp folder I think.
    '%files' =&gt; $remote_sites . '/files' // Your sites file folder, incase it is somewhere else.
  ),
  // You may actually need this, especially if you are running D7 since I haven't ever tested the db-url thing on D7 or above. 
  'databases' =&gt; array (
    'default' =&gt; array (
      'default' =&gt; array (
        'driver' =&gt; 'mysql',
        'database' =&gt; '{db_name}',
        'username' =&gt; '{db_user}',
        'password' =&gt; '{db_pass}',
      ),
    ),
  ),
);


After writing the answer I was thinking that this may be a D6 question but I answered assuming the opposite. If that is the case please let me know and I will try to answer for D6 also if there are in fact any differences. Hope this helps, thanks!