Traveling with 3 kids

How about getting self catering cottages (gites) and leaving the car (which you will need to see the Normandy Beaches properly) at an out lying train station. Leave the car, take a local train in, do your thing, reverse and ta da! Everyone gets breakfast, probably dinner at "home" with a nice touring day. Bath, early supper for the 5 year old who could care less about this whole deal and everyone else gets to have a relatively stress free day. Also there is the Ibis Chain (all the charm of a Hotel 6 but clean, great breakfasts and parking). We stay with them a lot.

We travel as a family of 5 as well. http://lee-reidfamilytravels.blogspot.com/ It would help if you listed a rough itinerary with the number of days at each. Reading your question, I can't tell how Germany fits in. In very general terms; rentals are best for families of more than 4, but only work for longer stays of at least 4, and preferably 7 days. For short stays, youth hostels are great. Kids love them and no, they are not just for college students and they are not party houses. Finding a hotel that would put you all in one room can be done, but it's work. Rooms for 5 might account for about 1% of all rooms available. In Amsterdam, we stayed in a B&B that had a top-floor apartment for three nights. I would recommend that one to anyone. We didn't stay in Brussels, but rather in nearby Bruges, where we used their youth hostel. In/near Normandy, we stayed on the island of Mont St Michel one night and in Honfleur another night. In each case, we were able to all be together in the same room or set of rooms. If you are going to be in the area, we also found a room for 5 in Amboise and Chinon in the Loire Valley. If these locations work for you, send me a Personal Message and I'll dig up the names for the places as best I can. The transportation issue I could better address if I could visualize better how your trip is laid out.

I agree that having your rough itinerary would help a lot with this question. Rooms that sleep 5 are available, just few and far between. Given that you are going in peak time and are just now looking, it might be even more difficult to find availability. I have had good success looking at the TI websites for towns as well as hostelworld.com. We've stayed at a hostel in a private room and it worked out well. Whether to drive or take a train - or low cost airline - can be a difficult decision. One thing you have to look at is that often you can get a discounted train fare for booking in advance and/or having children with you. (Not as much for France, unfortunately) Just be conscious of how much luggage you are bringing if you are going to be driving in a rental car.

We are staying with friends in Germany, so no accommodations are needed there. From there we will drive to Amsterdam for just two days and head to Brussels for two days. We plan on going back to our friends house in Germany before we travel with their family & ours out to Normandy. There will actually be 9 of us on that trip. Right now we are looking at B&B's in the Normandy area (somewhere between Mont St Michel & the actual beaches). That will be a three day trip. Because of the kids, we know we can't do EVERYTHING so the whole trip will be geared toward seeing the highlights in each place. Thank you for all your help!

I've traveled with three kids. I just call ahead and ask if they have something for a family of five, then let them offer what they have. We've been offered/stayed in combinations of two hotel rooms, apartments, or family rooms (and dorms seperated by sex).