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We did a 'tour' - our first family caravanning holiday, when we had just two weeks and a bit.  We set off Friday afternoon, straight from school, and added on the Bank Holiday Monday at the end.  We spent  Friday night in an Aire on the way south.  We toured  'just because we could' - we wanted to see as much as we could in a short time.

We did cross-country down to Burgundy, with lunch alongside the Seine, where the boys had a swim, then did 3 days at Village des Meuniers also in Burgundy, 4 nights at Remoulins near the Pont du Gard for some amazing memories of walking along the very top of the bridge and swimming in the beautiful Gardon just below the Pont.  Then we had 4 days at Brousse la Villaret north of Carcassonne, with a memorable evening visit to Carcassonne, followed by 4 days in the Dordogne, with a very long day's drive back to Calais, for an overnight stop, and then home on the Bank Holiday Monday, very late.

I'm not sure I would recommend doing that distance, but we found it gave us some very different experiences, the boys were at each site long enough to make friends, and we had a lot of very happy memories to come home to - plus a never to be forgotten whole tray of nectarines, dripping with juice, bought from the grower for the equivalent of a £1 or £2.  Nothing better, eaten sitting outside the caravan in the sunshine.

We have done 4 continental touring holidays with our caravan - and children, now aged 6 and 9.  With effort on both our parts we have now got our respective employers to allow us 3 weeks off which is a big help if you can possibly manage it.  We have done 2 weeks though - we just reduce the number of overnight stops and have tended to stay in the northern half of France when we only have 2 weeks.  it works out great - we usually stay between 4 and 7 nights at each site, plus 1 or 2 overnights.  We enjoy exploring, a bit of sightseeing, cycling and, now the children are a bit older, the beach and the pool are also in demand! 

We've always managed to find a site, and nearly all of them have been very good with sufficient clean sanitary facilities and pool.  We usually have a choice of pitches and it means we can pick shade/ sun etc at the time to suit the conditions.  We only booked once and the site was awful - we moved after 3 days! 

One thing we have found though is that we only like travelling for a maximum of 5 hours in the car in a day.  We're not very good at getting off early, so we usually leav site about 11am, travel for a couple of hours, stop for lunch then travel for 2-3 hours further.  Any longer than that and tempers start to get frayed!  Remember it's a holiday!

I was trying to work out how many family touring hols ive done,about 16 inc 4 weeks down to Spain,6 weeks down to Italy and many more.They have all gone wonderfully well although when we first started having 4 kids under 4 years of age was demanding.

Yours are at that age when making friends is so important,sites do vary but one ive stayed at 3 times were they have made lovely friends each time (mostly English) was camping Filature near Clermont Ferrand.Wonderful times.

My eldest will be 15 and yougest two 12 next summer and im mindful of these great times of family holidays maybe have only another few years to run.Make the most of them great times.