Frankfurt & Sicily 7 Day itinerary

With only 7 days you're not going to be able to see that much of either place because of the travel time involved, especially if you need to return to Frankfurt for a flight home. See if you can get an open-jaw flight into Frankfurt and home from either Palermo or Catania (those flights will most likely have a stop in Rome before heading to US). You'll probably end up with 2 days in Frankfurt and 3 days on Sicily due to the travel time involved so you'll have to know where in Sicily to fly into and out of to be close to where your ancestors are from and you may need to rent a car for your days there to get around. It's a lot to pack into a week but if it's important to you and you're up for it, then you might as well go for it.

groove_babie, Lufthansa (or maybe their regional airline Dolomiti) has a 2.5 hour flight from Frankfurt to Palermo, Sicily. Airberlin has a similar flight from Frankfurt to Catania, Sicily. Any transport other than airplane would take many, many hours. You probably know that Sicily is a very large, interesting and enjoyable island, and in a small number of days you would barely scratch the surface, although I realize you have a special reason to go there.

I wouldn't do it. With seven days you can have a lovely time in western Germany. Even if you wanted to spend the entire time in Sicily and were flying directly to Palermo or Catania, I'd be disappointed for you, because you'd miss out on so much. It is a large, fascinating island, worth two weeks or more. To me, 10-12 days would be the bare minimum for Sicily.

If you must do this, I hope you're prepared to rent a car in Sicily so you're not dependent on public transportation. Be aware that there are few inter-city buses moving on Sundays and holidays, so check the calendar carefully.

There is truly no way to combine Germany and Sicily on a one-week trip (if you must!) without flying. Use skyscanner.com to check into flights from Frankfurt to Sicily. Whether this is even remotely practical will depend on where in Sicily your father was born.

I don't know when you're making your trip. I randomly checked for flights in early April and found no non-stops from Frankfurt to either Catania or Palermo, a further complication.

I think flying is the only option. I assume your 7 days (you should count nights instead) limit has to do with work? Can you leave on a Friday snd come back on a Saturday or Sunday? That would give you 8-9 nights, 3-4 in Frankfurt and
4-5 in Sicilia. You will lose most of one day to travel to Sicilia once you consider security time, taxi and plane transfers, flight time, and getting into lodging.

Do you know exactly where your family is from? You may need a car if it's a smaller town or village.

Thank you for your insights I really appreciate them! You guys know way more than me. To answer some questions:
We are limited to 7 days due to the family member who is taking care of our boys while we are gone. She is taking them for 10 days, but with flying out there and back we are figuring 7 days to be IN Europe.
We will be traveling in July (i know, the hottest and busiest month in the year). Again, that is when my sister-in-law can take the boys.
I will be traveling to Francofonte in Sicily which isn't too far from Catania.

There appears to be AST bus service from Catania to Francofonte, but I couldn't get the schedule to appear on my desktop computer. The webpage may work better on a tablet or smartphone.

FYI, the best train connections between Frankfurt and Catania take 22-29 hours with 2 - 3 changes and many people don't sleep well on the overnight leg of the train.