Installed new hard drive, loaded Snow Leopard from disk, how to get back to Lion?

Our 2006 24" iMac, 2.16 C2D (EMC 2111) running the most up to date version of Lion had a hard drive failue. I replaced the hard drive and used the Snow Leopard disk we had to load the OS X. During installation I went through the migration assistant to load our most recent Time Machine backup. It loaded all apps and files just fine, but it did not update the OS to Lion. So, many of our most used applications (Aperture, iTunes) were versions that won't run on Snow Leopard 10.6.8. I thought I could just go to iTunes and view my purchased items and redownload Lion from there, but iTunes version installed from the backup doesn't work with anything less than 10.7. So, I erased the HD, re-installed Snow Leopard and did not use the migration assistant this time. Thinking I could run iTunes and get my Lion purchase downloaded and then resotre from Time Machine. That doesn't appear to be working. I've updated a couple of times, including iTunes, and it doesn't appear that I can find Lion. Would it be in my iTunes library  on my external? I haven't reconnected my external yet as I don't want anything to be modified during this attempt to fix things.
How do I get Lion re-installed from this point? I paid $29.99 when it first came out. The iMac won't run Mountain Lion, which seems to be available for download.

Yes, the retail version of Snow Leopard is a full install that can be put on a blank drive.
Order a Snow Leopard 10.6 install disk for $29 from The Apple Store as long as you have at least 1gb of RAM. http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC573Z/A?mco=MTY3ODQ5OTY
Put your install DVD into the optical drive and reboot. As soon as you hear the boot chime, hold down the "c" key on your keyboard (or the Option key until the Install Disk shows up). That will force your MacBook to boot from the install DVD in the optical drive.
When it does start up, you'll see a panel asking you to choose your language. Choose your language and press the Return key on your keyboard once. It will then present you with an Installation window.
Completely ignore this window and click on Utilities in the top menu and scroll down to Disk Utility and click it. You should see your hard drive in the left hand column along with your other drives. Click on the drive and select the Erase tab. Set the format value to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and click the Erase button. After that has finished select the Partition tab. Type in a Name for your hard drive and select how many partitions you want from the Volume Scheme. The usual setting is one partition. Click on the Options button after you've selected a partition to make sure it's set for GUID. Then click the Apply button and after the Partitioning is done quit Disk Utility.
You can now follow the instructions on the install screen
To upgrade your iLife and iWork. If you only want iPhoto or other single apps from iLife '11 you can get them from the App Store after you've upgraded to 10.6.6. iPhoto, iMovie or Garage Band for $15 each and Pages, Keynote or Numbers from iWork '09 for $20 each.

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