Wheelie - Where do I start with this one. I'm a bit older than you (61 now) and have been wrestling with this conflict between travel and family for the last 40 yrs. I still don't have an answer but what I have learnt is that a relationship breakup over this can have far more serious long term consequences than postponing a trip for a year or two or changing your wish list of plans to cope with your circumstances. The reality is that your available horizons shrink when someone else is involved and they shrink even more when children have to be taken into account.

In my case three serious relationships have covered those decades. The person in relationship one (70's) started referring to herself as a "motorcycle widow" over my persistent absence on trips and eventually she found someone with "better prospects". I regret that breakup to this day. Relationship two (80's) was happy to come with me on the bike but it foundered over the issue of children.

With the current Mrs B.O.B. (90's onward), maybe I got maturity at last or something but we've built up a family life that includes two children, homes, a career (she has one anyway) and a lifestyle that does enable us to do short trips (a month or two) every now and again. All of this is really important to me. I would dearly like to do some longer trips (I'm still healthy enough!) but still scarred by the outcome of relationship one I've had to decide where my priorities lie. My wife is aware of the conflict and does whatever she can to indulge me but there are limits.

Twice bitten, thrice shy means I'm conscious of the relationship consequences of dumping her with a demanding stressful daytime job and coming home to demanding stressful children, a pile of final demand bills and the endless depression of UK winter weather while I'm riding round Africa or somewhere in the sunshine. She has put up with me doing that a number of times over our 25yrs together but "payback" has been me taking up the strain when she has wanted to do something equivalent. It's not been easy and your circumstances may be (almost certainly are) different so you need to work out what's most important for you. With my two kids and your sidecar idea my son would have loved it but my daughter would have been traumatized by it.