SEA hotels for a short vacation.

[starchkr]

I am looking for a hotel or two in the SEA area for a short vacation with the wife. We want to be close to downtown, however, we also want to be able to get to some of the national parks pretty easily to spend a day hiking. We will have another couple with us and since money is kinda tight we need to find a hotel with two separate rooms or one room that has a door we can close off to the living room, such as embassy suites style. Speaking of Embassy, we have looked at both the Bellevue and the SEA-TAC Embassy and they both look nice and meet our needs, however the SEA-TAC is $40 more per night.

So here are my questions...
-Would staying this far away from downtown be ok in the SEA area as far as being able to get to the "tourist" spots downtown?
-What about these areas for getting to the national parks and outdoor things to do...since we would rather do these things than be inside all day...but the other couple is more of the inside type.
-What would you suggest a first time visitor do in the SEA area? To let you know we will be there the end of June, for the Marathon which starts off Sea Fair, so we would like to do Sea Fair one day, other than that what would you suggest we look at doing?
-Anything you could add or help with would be greatly appreciated.
-lastly, i have already been pouring over Tripadvisor and the travel websites...anything else?