WASHINGTON -- Democratic White House contender Barack Obama said Thursday he is taking his family on a week-long vacation to his birthplace of Hawaii for a much-needed break before the convention season.

Aides said the Illinois senator was leaving Friday and would have a proper rest with no campaigning, save for a fundraising event next Tuesday. However, he does have to finalize his pick of running mate before the Denver convention.

"I'm going to see my grandma, who I haven't seen in almost 18, 19 months," Obama told reporters aboard his campaign plane.

"We had the longest primary in history and so I can imagine that folks need a break from politics," he said.

"John McCain got one," he added of his Republican opponent, who wrapped up his party's nomination in March, eight months before November's general election.

"But the majority of people have been fed a constant stream of political chatter and I'm sure that having a couple of weeks off, and enjoying the Olympics, is probably what the doctor ordered for everybody," Obama said.

The Beijing Games open Friday, and Obama has polling evidence to back up his belief that Americans are thirsting for a break from 18 months of relentless politicking on the White House trail.

Obama said he realized the risks of leaving the campaign field at a time when McCain has been scoring hits with an advertising blitz, likening the Democrat to a vapid celebrity in the mold of Paris Hilton or Britney Spears.

But he noted a poll released Wednesday, by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, that suggested 48 percent of voters feel they have been overexposed to news about the Democrat.

"We are going to correct that this week," he quipped.

Obama, after his marathon primary tussle with Hillary Clinton, has been showing signs of fatigue on the campaign trail in the runup to the Democratic convention starting on August 25.

"You should be on the beach," British Conservative leader David Cameron told him during a recent meeting in London, at the end of a hectic dash by Obama through Afghanistan, Iraq, the Middle East and Europe.

In an ABC interview airing Thursday, Obama's wife Michelle said she was not yet focused on the Democratic convention in Denver where her husband will be formally crowned the presidential nominee.

"I'm not in the anticipatory mode yet because, quite frankly, we're going on vacation," she said, "to visit Barack's grandma."

Their comments were the first confirmation of widespread reports that the Obamas are planning a break in Hawaii to see his aging grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, and half-sister Maya Soetoro-Ng before the convention.

Asked about any family traditions on holiday, Michelle Obama said: "There can be mean games of Scrabble.

"He and his sister Maya, oh, they are deadly. In fact, sometimes we all just walk away and let them, you know, compete into the night."