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I would do extended stopovers, and choose your overnight sites carefully.  Some of our (now) favourite sites were those we found when overnighting on our way somewhere else.  Make sure there is enough for the children to do on site, and off site as well, and you may find that you go back for a longer stay next time.

With six weeks you have time to find lovely places en-route - perhaps Disneyland Paris or Parc Asterix could even be on the agenda - though tiring, so you will need more than just a couple of days!

If you need suggestions for overnight sites then I'm sure someone will have some good suggestions!

To be fair there are areas in France where we wouldn't try to go 'off-toll' - the journey from Calais to St Quentin, for example, is stop, speed limit, roundabout, stop, traffic lights, stop, one after another through a lot of towns and villages. 

On the other hand there is the non-toll road from Abbeville to Rouen, and Rouen to Chartres, which is fine apart from a couple of exceptions - the Dreux by pass (which can be avoided should you choose) and the Chartres ring road.  Then the whole section from just south of Orleans to the Mediterranean can be done off the toll roads in a reasonable time, and with few real hold ups.  We do our journeys out of peak season, though, and a holiday weekend in July/August will be very different to a Sunday in early May.

More about stopovers, you may find that your children make friends and don't want to move on - mine used to.  On one occasion we were overnighting, my youngest son went off on the Young Teenage Club musical sleepover in the woods, with a campfire, made friends with Robert and Catherine and said the following morning 'Do we have to carry on to Spain...............'.  Fortunately we hadn't booked, and so we just stayed put and had one of the best holidays ever!  We still keep in touch and hear from Robert and Catherine's parents regularly!

Anther short stop tip is to set off from one site early in the morning, and then stop about two or three o'clock.  That will give you time to set up - and still have time to walk around the site, the village, pop to the evening farmer's market, your children to enjoy a swim or whatever is going on locally and time to just unwind after the journey.  You'll be stopping before most others, and so will have more chance of finding the nicer pitches.

And a few more:

Make sure the caravan isn't cluttered with stuff that needs moving for you to be able to use it, and on short stops don't bother with anything you don't need.  If you don't use the caravan shower then forget the aquaroll and just have about five litres of water in the van, plus a full kettle.  Then you don't need the waste drain, and if he weather is good just put your table and chairs outside.  If not leave them packed away and use the caravan table.  We generally just arrive, steadies down, hook up in, kettle filled and on, and then put our table and chairs outside - and sit down!  Takes about five minutes at the most.  We have seen people arrive and put everything out but the kitchen sink and then pack it all away again next day before moving on (late!!)

If you have a lot of stuff you usually keep on the caravan floor, or in the bathroom compartment then think about a top box - that way it stays out of the way on the top of the car until you actually need it.  And a modern streamlined top box may even help with air flow and mpg when towing - though we do take it off when we arrive on a longer stay site.