You do not say where you are going. The advice above is very good, especially about filling your luggage before and hauling it up and down steps. Someone also said try rolling it around the block one time on uneven concrete.

Certain locations also are more tedious with big luggage.
Venice - If entering town by a water bus large luggage is difficult.

Certain swiss villages - Murren, for example is car free, access by gondola.

Lodging without elevators - The first and last time I took a 28 inch suitcase we were only on the 2nd floor but the staircase was concrete and circular.

Small lodging rooms.

We have taken on the last few trips a 22 inch (that can expand to 24) usually with 3 days of clothes, evening clothes, swim suit (to take in on one nighters, a good size tote with both our toileteries, and a 26 inch rolling duffel as a closet. Most times this worked very well.

On our planned trip this fall we are trying something new for us. Many of our stops the guide book warns not to leave anything in the car (Carcassonne, Mont St Michel for two), plus recent news of breaking into cars in Amboise. So we are still taking the 22 inch (already expanded to 24) which we will check, a 22 inch rolling duffel, our regular tote and a new smaller tote. Each will have one of the rolling and a tote.

Also, what I do not think anyone has mentioned is doing laundry. Usually for 21 days we do laundry once. Plan in advance where and take clothes for 10 days. This trip will be for 25days /23 nights days so we are planning to do a 2nd. Had a nice surprise. At a chambre d'hote we had reserved, I asked if they were near a laundromat, she responded that we can use theirs!

A lot depends as someone mentioned, how many stops you are planning to make. Another may be the security of the luggage on the train.

Good luck with whatever you end up deciding.

I don't travel particularly light myself, though I'm slightly better than I used to be.
Any bag that is more than 24" wide when upright is going to be hard to manage on aisles on train cars. The aisles might be slightly wider than 24", but maybe not. I speak from experience.

The next issue, is as mentioned, is how heavy is it for you? You have to be able to lift it going up some stairs, even if it's only in an occasional metro or train station. Or what if there's a broken escalator in the airport? Some luggage racks on train cars are overhead ones, especially if the large rack at the end of the car is full. You'd have to hoist your bag up and down.

I've traveled solo, with a 24" checked bag, and a carryon tote.
During the trip, the carryon becomes my daybag and purse. It is lightweight microfiber by itself, though I tend to load it down with items like a bottle of water or a cosmetic case that add a lot of weight.

What I also do now is budget an extra $25-$50 into my trip expenses, and have the hotel do laundry/dry cleaning at least once for me. This helps me bring fewer changes. It's a wonderful luxury to start again with clean clothes in the middle of my trip, and if I have to skimp on something else, that's what I prefer to do. Most cities and towns also have handy laundromats.

Taking a couple of folding tote bags has been one of the smarter things we have done. If we are B&B'ing it by car we don't usually take the 22" suitcases in. This bag zips closed so it also does duty for returning home with more stuff than we took. We also carry a microfiber tote that I think I bought from Magellans that folds down to about 4" x 2". This bag has a clip so I can clip it to my shoulder bag. It's perfect for shopping for groceries and the like and saves me money in the grocery stores in Ireland.

For our 4 week trip this last spring we both took for the first time 22" roller bags (instead of a 22 and 26). I carried a shoulder bag for camera, film, music, and the like while my wife had a small rucksack. "My" bag was heavier from the start being an expandable bag but then I ended up with the guide books and maps which were very heavy. I tried packing as light as possible, I only took one pair of shoes but I do take gadgets. We alsays plan on doing landry once but also do some wash out as we go. (This trip we ran into signs asking guests not to do laundry in the rooms.)

To make things more managable I mail ahead the guide books and maps for the second half of the trip and send home by mail everything for the first half. We also will mail home some of our purchases.

At 50 years old with bad feet I would not ever consider a backpack, even one of Rick Steve's, but except for lifting it into trains and up hotel stairs a wheel bag is the only way to go.

I read once on this forum that instead of taking one large suitcase, you might consider two 22" roll-ons. While I have not applied that advice to our European trips (we stick with the one 22" and one backpack per family member with our family of four), we did try out that method to take the kids to a college swim camp on an opposite coast as an alternative to the standard camp rolling duffle bag approach.

We put the bedding, towels, pillow, etc. in one suitcase so we wouldn't have to unpack/pack it during the pre- and post- camp hotel stays.

How did it work? Quite well. The kids (therefore any adult) could easily roll both pieces, they were easy to lift into the airport car rental shuttles, and getting everything into the rental car trunk was a snap.

The bonus was the arrival at the swim camp dorm. No elevators. While the kids couldn't manage both suitcases at the same time up the four flights of stairs, it was super easy to make two trips.

So tranferring that image to European-size taxis, trains, tiny hotels, I'd certainly recommend this packing alternative to a person who finds it hard to pack light.

<<Can we hand the bags to each other?>>

On our first trip to Europe, we way overpacked. When boarding a train, I got on and my husband handed the bags to me. As he reached for bag #3, the doors closed! Almost didn't get them opened again!