It's really not that bad, Where I lived in Northern Canada, (High Level, AB) the closest major center was 5 hrs away(Grande Prairie, AB), we would leave home at 5am, spend 7 hours shopping and then head home around 7pm to be home by 11pm.
In the winter months we would work a 12hr day on friday,(7am to7pm), then drive 4.5 hrs to a little mountain town (Tumbler Ridge,BC) we'd be up by 6am heading into the mountains to ride our sleds and we'd ride a full day saturday and sunday until 5pm before heading back home. During blizzards it was nothing for the drive to take over 7 hrs getting back.
It does start to get to you though, I usually like to alternate travel weekends but lately we seem to be going somewhere every weekend. After being somewhere every weekend for 5 weeks, We finally took the last two weekends off and just stayed home and got things caught up so we can now take off for a 10 day Vacation back on the West Coast of Canada, (Vancouver Island, BC).
Work Hard, Play hard, that's what I always say.