To aerate or not to aerate

We have lived in our current home for three winters. Now it's spring, and it's time to take care of the grass. Last summer, we finally got our sprinklers operational, so now we have lots of grass. And for some reason, the yard in front and back is bumpy. Apparently, the partial solution to that problem is to aerate our lawn, i.e., pull out plugs of dirt that look like very large goose turds and let them break down on the lawn.

My husband doesn't think aeration will do much good. He was pulling up webpages about "hydroseeding" last night. It involves spraying a slurry of fertilizer and seed onto bare ground to get an even cover of grass. It sounds expensive.

I figure aeration can't do much harm. I'll spend $30 on a manual plug aerator and give myself a few blisters using it to treat the really bumpy areas of our yard. Here's hoping it evens out the lawn a bit!