High Achiever Vacations

This CareerJournal article on how some executives spend their vacations learning languages or other subjects can spark at least three reactions:

1. Would a person's time be less productively spent if it were simply devoted to watching clouds, talking walks, and decompressing?
2. Isn't the article really saying that intellectually curious people never turn off that characteristic?
3. A positive endeavor may not be truly positive if another positive endeavor - such as spending more time with your children - was sacrificed to achieve it.