Your pictures are not accessible in your backups but are there non the less. If you are running iOS 7 and using photostream then you would have access thru the photostream interface.
If you updated to iOS 8 and chose to set up iCloud Drive which replaces photostream then you will have full access to photos and documents as well as other personal data
iCloud Photo Library is still in Beta and for limited iCloud Drive users. It will probably come out of Beta with 8.1.x. Otherwise you have to download the pictures to your iOS devices. And what kataran said above: If you have iOS 7 you would need photostream active. And of course welcome to iMore.