Wow, wow, wow! Who knew there were places in the world that are so impressive?!!? We had a fabulous time in Rome! It was a quick trip--three full days in the city plus travel time--but it was phenomenally worth it, and we used every minute. (Just ask the children how their feet are doing to hear a little grumbling about walking for days on end to see really cool things but with only occasional gelati--fantastic ice cream--to sustain you...)
We booked our hotel with our flight and subsequently didn't know quite what to expect from our "three-star Italian hotel," the Hotel de Artistes. The exterior wasn't much to look at--a small sign on the side of an old brick building down a side street in the Northeast section of Rome, but it turned out to be quite nice. The hotel was a collection of a few rooms on several different floors, a small check-in counter and sitting room, a very old metal-cage lift (elevator), and a roof-top dining area. That's it, but our rooms were right next to each other and were comfortable. They even both had bathrooms "en suite," though the children were a little confused about the extra toilet in each one... Even in this old building, both the stairs and the bathrooms were completely marble, and it felt like you were in Rome even inside. They served simple but fabulous breakfast (complete with the best sweet croissants [pronounced "candy"] on the planet--so good it was hard to stop eating them before you were actually in pain--and we ate on the roof of the building in the cafe-like setting complete with heaters to make it a little more comfortable for the crazy Americans eating outside in February. The pigeons we couldn't convince the kids to stop feeding added to the ambiance and offered endless meal-time entertainment. The best part was that the hotel was about half a block from a subway station and central to most of the sights, and it made for a great home base for our Roman adventure.
So, here is what we ended up doing in Rome:
Day 1: Ostia Antica
Day 2: Colosseum, Roman Forum, the hand-eating-mouth (La Bocca della Verita), and St. Peter in Chains Cathedral (plus some major wandering, which doesn't really count as a destination but is significant, looking for the Prison of Peter and Paul, which we never found but also which afforded us a look at back/side streets we never would have seen otherwise)
Day 3: The Pantheon & Vatican City (including the Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter's Basilica)
Day 1:
Ostia Antica must be one of the least-known, just-plain-cool spots in the world. It is a port city about 30 miles from Rome that was destroyed at the same time as Pompeii but is much better preserved and significantly easier and less expensive to get to. With this port city in such great shape, I'm not sure why Pompeii is the more famous of the two cities; I'm going to just add it to my "Go Figure" list and move on... We spent all day wandering the ruins of this beautiful city, complete with necropolis, churches, merchants quarter, political/city center, amphitheater, bath houses, mill, tile mosaic floors, aquaduct tunnels, frescos, etc., etc., etc. We were surprised at how huge and well-preserved it is, and it really did take all day to see it. 
Visiting a place like this really gives you a flavor of what life must have been like in a thriving city like Ostia Antica, getting a glimpse of life for the ridiculously wealthy down to the least well off. Even though it was so long ago, I don't imagine that life was much different for them than it is for us, everyone just going about their business and attempting to survive with dignity and happiness. The verdict? Everyone decided the day was "totally awesome" (tired feet excluded), and after some fabulous Italian food that we paid way too much for we all fell into bed happily exhausted and looking forward to the next day.
By the way, Ostia Antica gets a score of 10 on the coolometer!
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