Where with kids?

I'd suggest London as a good base. You can do several day trips and there are LOTS of 'kid friendly' things to do in London itself. You could do the Tower, British Museum, Madame Tusuade's wax works, a trip to Windsor- tour the castle they will love the displays. Go to some good plays. Maybe do a trip to Bath or Brighton or Stratford-Upon-Avon. If you could work out a few more days it would be even better. With 1 day flying over and 1 flying home, a week doesn't leave much time!

A week, 7 days, translates into 5 full days on the ground for seeing/doing things (and maybe a partial day on your arrival day but you and the kids will be jet-lagged and tired on the first day), because of travel time. You'll want to consider the tradeoff of flying into one city and staying there the 5 days, versus the travel time required to fly into city A, travel within Europe to city B, etc. You don't say where you've been on the previous trips. London is good but is one of the most expensive destinations in Europe, if cost is a factor. 5 days may be a long enough period of time to find what they call a self-catering unit (apartment) instead of a hotel room, it might make it easier to feed the family since London and other big cities can not only be expensive for hotels but also expensive places for a family of 4 to eat a lot of meals in restaurants every day.

Ooooh, just reading the replies, I'm missing London. For kids, especially, the Tower Bridge museum and the City of London museum, also. There is a small museum of childhood in Bethnal Green. The collection is toys, toys, toys. And the trains are separate from the dolls (Dad and the boys in one room, Mom in the other). The Imperial War Museum is cool, including real fighter planes and a simulation of London during the Blitz. Then the Greenwich museum, wander around an 18th century ship, stand with one foot in the western hemisphere, one in the eastern. . . The changing of the guard, Big Ben, lots and lots for the boys to enjoy, and all in English!

ONE WEEK!!! You have free airline tickets, you are travelling with kids, one week is too short. Really try and rearrange things for a longer trip if you possibily can, it will make for a much nicer trip. The first and last days are write offs, so you really only have 5 days of sigtseeing. Those free tickets could get you alot more sightseeing if you could even sqeeze in 3 or 4 extra days.

For such a short trip I'd recommend London also. Shortest flight. ( They are used to 7 or 8 hour flights ? )
Lots of things young boys would like. My sons enjoyed seeing all the suits of armour and weapons at the Tower of London, they also enjoyed Warwick Castle very much( google for its website) . You could daytrip to Brigton if weather is nice and walk along the boardwalk there. The British Museum is good even for young ones( in small doses) as it has a good Egyptian section,,with mummies!!

Or, for something completely different, why not fly to Scotland, rent a car and tour castles there. I've never done that, but sounds like it would be low key, and fun.

Lucky you getting free tickets.. I would be tempted to fly to the most expensive ( airline flight wise) destination ,, to get the most value out of them.

PS Of course I suggest Europeon destinations, but , if you had more time why not Australia( although it would be their winter)?

What a choice you have,, I am so jealous,,!

I agree with Toni, London would be a great city. When you go to the tube station let your boys read the tube map and have them tell you how many stops it is to where you are going. They would have a great time in any of the parks, St. James Park is great they could feed the squirrles, birds, swans, and ducks. I would suggest going to Whitehall for the charging of the guards, you can get closer and the view if fantastic, instead of Buckingham Palace. Windsor would be a great 1/2 or whole day trip. If you go to Westminster Abbey they could see the Cornation Chair where the Queen/King sits on his/her Cornation Day and gets the crown place on his head. They would love to see The Lion King, a fantastic play with fantastic costumes. Hamley's toy store is fun to visit. Covent Garden is also fun. And of course the famous platform 9 3/4
at Kings Cross. There is so much in London that your children would enjoy, and then there are the day trips you could take.

Since it's only a week, I would stick with a fairly small area. At 6 and 8 I would guess the boys would have a great time exploring castles. I also think they would enjoy themselves more (for a first trip) somewhere where they understand the language.

London, Paris or Rome could easily take a week, but many of the best sites might be boring to them at this age.

I would probably stay away from the fast-paced city and spend a week in Northern Wales. It has some great castles and I think you can also show them a mine tour and take a steam train ride.

Stay at a B&B to give them a taste of home life in another country.

My kids are older (12+14) so their interests may be different, but they Loved Paris because they have seen So Many of the landmarks in books,on tv and in movies (think Notre Dame, and Disney's Hunchback) Versailles, Tour Eiffel, the Metro. Your boys would probably Love the Sewer tour (my girls were grossed out by the idea, but it seems like a "Boy" kind of thing to do).
They also loved Haarlem (holland) because the buildings were so unique & old , the food was great,the people friendly and the city is so clean.

London is always great, but as your kids are used to travelling already, they may enjoy the next travel hurdle, which is going somewhere where they speak another Language.
For me, going somewhere where English is not the first language makes it really feel exotic and exciting.

No Matter what I would suggest you take them somewhere YOU love and then Everyone will have a great time.
They will remember some of the trip when they get older, but not everything. What they Will remember is that You were having such a good time.

If you go to London :
Pollocks Toy Museum. Goodge Street Tube Stop, Northern line. 1 Scala Street, London.

Kings Cross Tube Station has Platform 9 3/4 for Harry Potter fans to see and get a pic of them in front of!

I would go north to Scotland. Having spent last weekend with a 4 and 7 year-old then you need places to run! Scotland has good castles Stirling, Edinburgh. It has museums that are child friendly, Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh and the Transportation museum in Glasgow. Up in the Cairngorms you can find steam train rides in case you have Thomas friends. Also, there are lots of places for walks and countryside to explore. You might want to explore this web site. http://gems.scot.info/dayplans/familydays.htm Also, Historic Scotland sites often have family friendly events and would be a good place to check for happenings while you are there.

You should try more kid friendly options within the states of the us there is little or notravel time and with early flights it gives u the whole day to plan things to do.

LegoLand was a big hit for our son! It is in Denmark. Here is a link to them:
http://europeforvisitors.com/europe/articles/legoland.htm

Having free tickets to anywhere, I can see why you would like to go to Europe. Even child fares are expensive to fly there right now. I have not been to London with children, but I think that would be a nice choice also. When I was there without the kids I kept saying oh the boys would love this... (We have two boys also- they are 10 and 12 now) There are different web sites for traveling with kids that can help you. One that I like is www.TravelforKids.com/main.htm We started traveling with the kids since they were 3 and 5 and no matter where we go, we always find something fun to do. We have traveled to Mexico and the kids loved the ruins, plus hanging out at the ocean and pool. Our last family trip was to St. Kitts. The boys loved exploring this friendly island. The big hit was the old fort. (Brimstone Hill Fortress) We had them study the history of island and the fort before we left. one last thing that we like to do before a trip is visit the library do research and find books to read about where we are going. (Magic Tree House have some on diff. places in Europe) My oldest is quite excited to visit Pompeii because of this research. Hope this helps some....

Just a week..parents already europe travellers...Plenty to see in Paris..they can do London for their first trip alone...but I would go to Bali if i had those tickets!! I was there for a week during a year of travel and often thought of going back...so RE/ANYWHERE that's where i'd go.

Okay, Ginny. We've decided that you are going to London. Now let's figure out when, and if we can stretch it into more than 7 days. Then we can just argue (oops, I meant debate) your daily itinerary for the next few months. tee-hee

Memorial Day is Monday, May 25. If you leave on Sat May 23, and return on Sun May 31, you miss 4 days of work/school and have 7 days in London. How does everyone feel about this?

...and i just re-read the previous comments...those are very nice suggestions...but the tickets are for "anywhere in the world"!!...how about Singapore or Hong Kong ?or Rio di Janeiro?...No matter what you do the kids will remember it!!

Wow! Thanks for the fabulous response!! It looks London is a great choice. My husband and I have not been there in 9 years, so I think we would all enjoy it. I like the idea of spending some time outside London, as well. My husband and I are both teachers and our school year ends on May 22, so we could leave as early as the 24th or 25th. And since we do have the entire summer off, I think we will make it a longer trip...maybe 12-14 days?

How about Africa and going on a safari?? Wow, what a thrill that would be for the children and the adults seeing the animals 5 feet away from the vehicle.
I wish I had "that" problem of where to go with free tickets. If anyone would like to give me two, I'll be glad to take them and go far, far away!

Well now you tell us you can go longer, what were you even thinking about one week for,, Americans and their TOO short holidays.LOL.

With two weeks you could easily do London and Paris.

Google these two sites.

Provins France, a great learning living museum for the boys,, they can see jousting tournements, hawking demostrations, and catapaults,, what kid wouldn't like that!!

Warwick Castle UK,, Same thing sort of .. my 14 yr old really enjoyed the day there.

In France see the Eiffel Tower, all my kids loved it.
Notre Dame( climb the Bell Towers to see the Gargoyles)
Seine River cruise

In London the kids will enjoy the Tower of London and British Museum.

The Eurostar between the two cities is very reasonable when booked 89 days in advance. PRices go up after that. City center to City center , no need to rent a car or take a train out to airports.

There are decent clean hotels in Paris for under 120 euros if you book in advance. London I am not as familiar with, but I am sure there are deal somewhere.

Lucky you. PS I know this is taboo here, but you could consider Eurodisney when you are in Paris, its only a 40 minute train ride away..