Suggestions for Hawaii for Dad and 11 and 7 year old boys?

With 'only' six days here, I wouldn't recommend splitting up your trip between 2 islands. You will spend a lot of time packing, traveling to and from airports, renting cars, etc. It's not worth it in my opinion.

Oahu has a lot to offer. It's not a "big city tourist trap on the beach." Some people say that Honolulu is like L.A. Ha! Those people have clearly never lived in L.A. I have, and trust me, Honolulu is NOTHING like L.A.! Once you get outside Honolulu, Oahu is just as beautiful as any of the other islands, but you have the conveniences of restaurants, shopping, nightlife, and activities as well. Oahu has the Honolulu Zoo and Waikiki Aquarium as well as the Polynesian Cultural Center (food and dancing from various Polynesian islands), Sea Life Park, Hanauma Bay for snorkeling, Pearl Harbor, and Wet and Wild water park. You can hike, boogie board, surf, take catamaran rides, and lots of other things on Oahu as well.

If you've already been to the Big Island and enjoyed it, you could always go back. I'd rather visit a different island myself -- that way I can see more things! But everyone is different.

Maui has the Maui Ocean Center which is like a small version of Sea World (San Diego). It's fantastic! Maui also has good beaches and all of the water activities I listed above as well as great scenery, hiking, etc.

Kauai -- my island -- has very little in the way of dining, shopping, and nightlife (though with young kids, you wouldn't be hitting the bars anyway). ;) The scenery here is gorgeous and there are activities such as ziplining, ATV, horseback riding, and innertubing down what used to be a sugar cane irrigation ditch. There are some great boat tours where you can snorkel, see the Na Pali coastline, and see TONS of dolphins! The beaches here are fantastic and you can buy an inexpensive boogie board for each of your sons at Wal Mart -- they would probably be happy with doing that for the entire time you're here!

In short, most of the activities in Hawaii can be done on any of the islands. Everyone has his or her own favorite for whatever reason. My recommendations:

1) Choose one island and stay there the entire time

2) Go somewhere different since you've already seen the Big Island

If you want to do some further research, buy the 'Revealed' books from Borders or Barnes and Noble. There is one for each island. You can check them out here: www.wizardpub.com. That's the authors' website. I have all of the books (even though I live here!) and use them frequently. They're pretty good at summing up the best beaches, restaurants, and activities on each island.

Have fun and aloha ~