Such fun! I think you are very brave tackling three days with all those bodies on a stormy weekend a long way from home for your first outing. Your au pair sounds like a complete star - I never liked sharing a bed with my own child, let alone anyone else's!!! She's a keeper for sure!
Re: mud. We have cotton rugs in the van which can come out and go in the washing machine. By the end of a muddy weekend they look a bit manky, but it's so easy to clean the van up once they are taken out. I also have a blanket over the seats (a) because the seats are very boring and grey and I am a girly girl and (b) like the rugs, the blanket can just go in the wash when I get home if necessary.
The awning thing sounds interesting. Our awning arrives tomorrow, and is not a super one like yours - we opted for an el cheapo teeny tiny Khyam as it won't actually get used much, so it'll be fun to see how we get on with it.
Sat nav: it takes a bit of getting used to. To enter postcode you need to click on the city and then it has some initials (something like ptd - can't remember exactly) in the bottom left corner. That foxed us for several weeks! One thing I've learnt over the years of driving around with my husband is that it's always a good idea to take a good map book with you as well. When there are unexpected hold ups/cock ups/roadworks, sat navs seem to go a bit spanner and without a paper map you can go a long way out of your way for not much benefit. I may be a luddite, but you really can't beat a good old fashioned map. Sat nav is great for most journeys though.
Once you've done a few more trips out, setting up and packing away will work like clockwork. Think of a couple of little jobs the boys can help with - when our little one (now a big 17 yr old) was small and we had a caravan, he always liked to be part of the 'crew', which was lovely and, despite the fact that it would probably have been easier to leave him sitting in the car with his DS (!), we always assigned him some things to do when we were setting up our caravan. As he got bigger, he got more useful. Sadly, he thinks the Cali is uncool and much prefers to stay at home at weekends now and let his aged parents bumble around on their own.
You're going to have so much fun!
