to TOUR or not with teenagers??

Am LOL. Our first trip to Europe, we were in Neuschwanstein in February years go. It started to snow. To me, from NYC, nothing is impossible. We were just going to drive over the Alps into Austria, up over the mountains. Guess what, we drove through blinding snowstorm up and up. Don't do what we did. Can't tell you about public transport but it has to better than what we did. Good luck.

All of those places are easy to see and visit using public transportation, such as the trains. No need to use a tour bus nor drive in the snow. From Munich, you can go on short day tours to Neuschwanstein if this is easier for you, as there are several companies that offer this.

You can see all of these places by train easily. I think that's actually a pretty good winter plan. My usual recommendation is that with the exception of skiing, you'll get the most efficient use of your precious time and money in cities during the winter.

Do it. But just in case weather turns bad, plan on using trains. Occassionally it may be practical to do9 a one or two day rental car. But expect to use public transportation

When we travel in Germany we almost always use a car - mainly because we can borrow it for "free" (only have to pay for gas and parking) and we travel as a family of 4. However, in winter we skipped the car and booked train tickets even though it was more expensive. The weather is just too unpredictable. While snow and ice can affect all modes of transportation delays for trains are minimal compared to what happens on the road. How are your teenagers in the morning? Mine do not want to get up early on vacation. We could get them to move early occasionally but a tour schedule with daily departures around 9 am would be anything but fun for us.

We've been to all of those cities several times in the winter and it is really easy to get around by train to visit all of them and have a great stress free time. Your kids will love traveling by train (and so will you)! Even with train travel, expect cold and possibly wet weather (as other posters have said) and layer accordingly. Just because it's raining, snowing, sleeting, sunny, whatever, doesn't mean that you won't have a great time. P.S. Get your kids to wear more waterproof shoes than they might be used to wearing at home and break them in before you go. I've seen shivering teens wearing trainers or Vans (canvas style shoes) with no socks when it is below 0...

Ditto what Mona said. Echoing my dear departed grandmother's statement to me years ago You won't see anyone you know or care about. Feel free to use that in case they don't want to wear sensible shoes which won't make a fashionable statement.

Thanks so much to everyone. The consensus is certainly to travel by train, and we have decided to do just that. I hear all your advise about cold weather too - we are from Queensland so it's a real change for us. Although we are skiers and have a good selection of layers, shoes is a definite worry!!
We're all really excited and planning the detail now. Germany and Trains, here we come!