it's 2 vacations at 2 weeks each. Didn't take their usual vacation last year so those 2 weeks were saved up.
We'll see another big push of vacations before the kids go back to school in mid august.
I deal with schedules a good bit in my job and I always try and get groups to consider summer vacations and the fact that after Halloween (2nd week in November in reality but Halloween sounds funnier) nothing much at all gets done. You have people burning down vacation hours (if they don't have to many they don't accrue more) and overtime hours. So if there is a major review or something do not schedule it the last 2 months of the year.
But I've never seen anything like this summer. At seems like everyone is either on a 2 week vacation, just got home from one or is due to take theirs. It's fantastic.