We love driving in Europe. My husband and I spent a month in France in 2012. We started with a week in Paris, took the train to Reims, spent a couple of nights, then picked up our car there for the rest of the journey. We dropped it off in Aix-en-Provence and took the fast train back to CDG where we spent the night before flying home.
I can assure you that driving in France is very different from driving in the States. France is bigger and it takes longer to travel by car than you might expect. The signage is different. It makes sense once you educate yourselves about it, but don't assume that it will always be intuitively obvious. The driver will need navigation help from the non-driver. Expect conflict.
And, of course, France, like most European countries, has ways to detect when you make an error in driving judgment without you knowing that you've done that or that they've detected it. We got not 1, but 2 speeding tickets there. 🥴
It may not be this way with all car rental agencies, but we discovered that the primary driver must also be the renter. If that person's credit card was not used to pay for the car, you will automatically be charged for 2 drivers instead of one.
Then there are the car size and transmission issues. It will likely be smaller than you expect. That's not very conducive to bringing lots of luggage to keep out of sight. If you don't know how to drive a standard transmission car and something happens to your husband, what will you do?
Below is a link to Gemut.com's free download on renting a car and driving in Europe. They are actually located in OR and are a great resource for advice on the topic.
What You Need to Know About Renting & Driving a Car in Europe:
https://www.gemut.com/latest-travel-news/what-you-should-know-about-renting-a-car-in-europe
If you don't have an RS France book, here's a link to getting one from the many guidebooks on France from his online shop: https://store.ricksteves.com/shop/guidebooks/france
In the meantime, you can go to the Explore Europe section on France to learn a lot before your guidebook arrives: https://www.ricksteves.com/europe/france
Finally, this being your first trip to Europe, I highly recommend that you devour and take to heart everything you can learn from the Travel Tips section of this RS website: https://www.ricksteves.com/travel-tips
I've been to Europe many times and lived in Germany for 3 years, but I still check there to fill in any knowledge gaps for my trips. Any of us can make mistakes because we don't know what we don't know.
P.S. I hated Versailles. We were there in mid-June. It was rainy and a mud wallow. I wouldn't be surprised if the weather was not outdoors friendly when you plan to go.
The grounds are enormous and could be fun for the kids if the weather is decent.
We didn't even go into the palace. It was too crowded. I can't imagine that little kids would enjoy it even if it wasn't crowded. Depending on how tall they are, their view is not likely to be the one of the lead dog in the pack.
By the way, whether you join the herd in the palace or not, you still have to wait in line to go through security, outside, no matter what Mother Nature is sending your way. And where you wait has large rounded and very slippery cobblestones. That's where I decided never to wear anything but totally flat, lace-up, ankle-supporting boots on my European trips.