To Sooth(er) or not to Sooth(er)?

I am a new parent. One of the issues I thought about was should I use a soother or not. I had the Gerber Nuk soothers in my hospital bag just in case but never ended up using them at the hospital. I didn't want my son get nipple confusion as I was bound and determined to breast feed. When he was a week old or so I used to use it when I put him down to sleep but wasn't quite out but still stirring. Once he was out, I removed it. I only did this a few times and we soon forgot about the soother and whenever we would try later he would just spit it out. Clearly my son prefers his boobs andWill not take a bottle; until this past weekend that is.

My fiance and I being new parents and being nukin futs decided to take a 6 1/2 week old baby on a road trip; A 13 hour road trip including a ferry ride. We broke it up stayed a night at my sisters where he proceeded to fuss for 6 hours on and off. Bad idea. Next day we get to our destination in eastern BC to his my fiance's family including grandparents who were just meeting Mr. Squeally Pants aka my son for the 1st time.
All in all the weekend was great, the traveling sucked. The 2nd day of traveling was good until the last hour. Where my son proceeded to crap 3 times in an hour. The trip back was hell. We did a 10 hour trip over 13 hours with a baby from eastern BC to Vancouver on a holiday Monday with butt loads of traffic from the Fraser Valley on which equals one pissed off kid, here enters the soother. I sat in the back with him most of the time. If he fussed I would put the soother in his mouth and held it there; Thus creating a monster. He went to town on this. When we got to my dad's and he screamed for 2.5 hours straight. We didn't want to give him the soother as it had done its job... He rocked, fed, held, song, bounced nothing would work but the soother. The only thing that got him to sleep was falling asleep on my chest.

Before the trip, we had a routine down. I would put him to bed drowsy, put on his Fisher Price Ocean mobile thingy and he would cry a bit and fall asleep for the most part. The trip messed him up. Yesterday we get home and the only thing he wanted was his soother, a habit which we do not want him to get into. My girlfriend says that babies have short memories. I have not researched this nor had time. But today we have been soother free; however he did take a bottle finally! I don’t' know if it was the soother or the fact that it contained breast milk but he drank it. I can't pump as I have Thrush, and hand expressing takes FOREVER. But I did it because I had to leave him with a friend for a few hours this morning. He took it from her and later today he took the rest from me. I hope he will take a bottle 1-2 times per week so I can have a bit of a break.

Should I use a soother or not?