I'll admit I dont know much about the Fallout sunrise compared to TES lore. However, are both games worth playing or could I learn the lore elsewhere?

I suggest, heartily, that you play both. They're great games with a great story. Graphics may be dated, but hey, you don't play Fallout for Crysis looks. They're much more about a story then shiny things.

You could read all about them on the Vault or Nukapedia but it's much more fun to simply play them yourself. Gog.com has them as well as Steam and others. The bundle at Wal-Mart is around 20 bucks, if you live near one.

I have seen the bundle plenty of times, but of course when I finally want to jump the gun and get them they were gone.

It depends on what kinds of games you like. Fallout was envisioned as a turn based tactical RPG [series]. Gameplay is realtime exploration and conversation, and tactical turn based fights where you are usually outnumbered.
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The story is good, and conversation is good ~~There is a reason Bethesda paid so much to license /then own it. The TB combat is not the best example of TB combat ~but it's decent.
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It is possible to learn the facts elsewhere, but you don't get a sense of the world and its atmosphere from a wiki.
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If you are going to buy one, I'd suggest the http://www.gog.com/gamecard/fallout simply because they have ensured that it will actually run on modern Windows versions.
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Something to bear in mind with these games: They were designed to run on a PC platform that was expected to have 16 MB ram to work with, instead of 4096MB to 8192MB (as is common now); so it's quite light on the superfluous animations and flashy graphics, and it's not using 3D data.

Precisely why picking one up as soon as you see it, is the way to go.

As Gizmo said, they're turn-based and such. AP is not for VATS, as Fallout 3 and NV, they're used to fire and reload and all that goodness.

They're superb games and for a fan of Fallout, they should really resonate. I suggest, like I said, that you get them.

Personally, as much as I love the original games - they're not something I'd recommend to everyone no matter what. Even back in the day, they were pretty "niche" games. Even more so now. They aren't going to be to everyone's tastes.

But on the bright side, you can get them for pretty cheap now - so it's not like you're going to be out all that much if you try it out and don't like it.