Hoard of the dragon queen quidance

I've been reading up on this and I know this isn't the greatest but I have it and we will probably do it for our first adventure. I did see a few ways to help when looking around, starting at lvl 2 and healing every time you go back to the keep. Any other ways to help this adventure on? I saw that there is a very long and by the sound of it tedious journey, what's the best way to keep this interesting as well. First time dming so talk to me like I'm a baby. I'm fairly good at improvising if I need to do that along the way. Playing with good friends so if they all die we will have a good laugh about it anyways.