re: 1

FYI, Europe with a family aint as cheap as people say. As a Florida resident I can do 4 days with 3 kids at Disney for under $3000 by staying at a house off site and being reasonable on food.

You'll be lucky to find airfare for $600 each which is $2400 for a family of 4 to europe. Throw in passports and other travel costs and you are going to be lucky to get to Europe for under $3000 just in round trip travel.

I spent 16 nights in Paris last November with my family of 5 plus I paid for the lodging and airfare for my MIL and our total was about $18,000. Luckily I had 1.2 mil CC points. I tried like hell to get good airfare but ended up averaging about $900 each. My wife wanted great lodging so we splurged and that was about $400/ night but it was a 3 bedroom apt in the Latin quarter so really not bad IMO. But a good chunk of that was also going to Disney Paris for 3 nights and 2 days. I could have gone to France for under $10k easily for that time period for a family of 6.

Its the second time my oldest has been to Europe and she is 9.

Europe is generally VERY family friendly. My recommendation for little kids is to avoid the BIG cities...as a guy that's been to London and Paris. But seriously, the small to mid size cities where you don't have to use a massive subway system and can drive around is fantastic. Generally things are closer together/ more walkable and things there are generally more family friendly than the states.

I would highly recommend Ireland due to the short flight or Belgium, Holland, etc area of Northern Europe.