Americans often get knocked for taking fewer vacation days or paid time off than workers in other countries, specifically European countries.  I just completed what was by far the longest vacation of my professional life - 25 days, taking me out of the office for a full four weeks.

Here are my observations:

Taking that much time off as a single vacation meant that I was able to cut loose the office strings very quickly.  On a one week vacation, you may spend the first day or two still thinking about whatever unresolved issues you may have left behind, then you spend the last day or two starting to think about the work that is stacking up on the desk while you're gone.  This might leave you four days to really relax and unwind.  But by being out for four weeks, the initial concern of unresolved issues at the office had left my system before my head hit the pillow the first night.  No sense in worrying about things that I wouldn't be able to address for a month.  I did start to think about the work on the last day or two, but with very little contact with the office while I was out, I didn't know enough about what was happening there to think too much about it.

The dollar sucks, and the only way to get over it is to convince yourself that Dollars are equal to Euros.  Adding 60% to the price of everything will just make you angry; lying to yourself and acting as if they are the same will make your trip much more enjoyable - at least it did for me.  Hey, at least the wine was cheap (in Euros and Dollars!).

Despite being 41 years old, it took this trip for the secret of vacationing with our kids to appear to me:  Let them stay up late, sleep late, eat gelato every day, and spend some serious time on the beach.  We all know, more often than not, happy kids mean mom is happy.  Add to that my self-hypnotic-induced charade that Euros=Dollars, and everyone had a great time!