My favorite thing in the world is to travel. We have recently re-aligned our spending with our goals and made travel a much higher priority. I spend a lot of time thinking about it.
I highly recommend following
www.secretflying.com for cheap flights. We have made vacation decisions based on that alone. With you being on the east coast you could get an awesome trip to Europe for a steal if you hit the right deal. For international travel with kids, I've gotten a lot of ideas from
www.earthtrekkers.com.
My kids are 5, 7, and 16. In the past few years we've done the following:
-all-inclusive in Jamaica April 2016 (NOT cheap, but one of the best vacations we have ever had, Beaches Ocho Rios, I think it was about $8700 for 7 nights, including flights, which may be cheaper for you)
-Thanksgiving to London/York/Edinburgh (COLD but really fantastic trip, cheap-ish lodging via airbnb and hit a British Airways fare sale, non-stop from San Diego was $744 adults/$644 kids)
-summer road trip 2016 to Colorado/Utah; very hot in Utah, but still a good time. We visited: Mesa Verde, Arches, Canyonlands, Goblin Valley State Park (awesome), Capitol Reef (meh). River rafting in Durango was the highlight of the trip.
-Italy in April 2017 (another British Air fare sale, plus separate Alitalia flights from London, plus Chase UR points meant flights were $500 each), visiting Rome, Florence, and Pompeii. Nice and inexpensive airbnb in Rome, day-tripped to Florence and Pompeii. Excellent trip with the kids, even if they got a tad bored in some of the museums.
-road trip 2015 up the pacific coast, including: Crater Lake, Redwoods, Olympics, Lassen. Cheap if you camp, but you'd have to fly out here and rent a car for that.
-we did a massive road trip all the way to Ohio/Michigan and down to Alabama, then back across Texas. During this trip we visited Cedar Point in OH (love rollercoasters), Mammoth Cave in KY (must go back when they're bigger), Ruby Falls in Chattanooga, and had two nights in New Orleans. We actually really enjoyed New Orleans even with the kids. The food was epic and we did a Mississippi river boat cruise that the kids enjoyed.
Here are some of the things I'm considering for future travel with my kids; some in your area:
-fly into Chicago, road trip loop up to Mackinaw and Isle Royale, down to Wisconsin Dells to the water parks (SIL/BIL used to live near there which is why it's on our radar).
-fly somewhere in NE (you wouldn't have to fly at least), road trip from Boston (maybe a night at the Great Wolf Lodge after visiting historical sites), to Niagara Falls, and back through Vermont (van Trapp lodge maybe?).
-summer campervan road trip in Iceland. If you check out Wow Air their fares are very inexpensive, if you're willing to go no-frills. From the west coast I have the trip in its entirety (minus food, but including gas, campervan, flights, insurance, campingcard, etc) at approx. $8k for five of us next summer, so it is not a budget trip by any means. Iceland has been at the top of my list for 20 years though so I think we're finally going to do it next year.
Our next trip is an all-inclusive in Cancun, but flights are much cheaper for us than they would be for you since we're flying out of Tijuana. We will go to Chitchen Itza while we're there, so there will be something educational between all the waterslides/pool/beach/etc. Total for 5 is $5200 for 7 nights, all-inclusive, plus the cost for the Chitchen Itza tour ($500 ish).
Too many places to go and not enough time...