Oh mate, totally take the holiday.
We were approved in May, met our boys at a stay and play in June, expressed interest immediately, various social workers went on holiday over the summer (factor that into plans, all meetings need all social workers and relevant parties, and so that can seriously delay stuff depending on when they fall) , matching panel in November and they didn't move in until December. 6 months. It was a hideous wait, and social workers just kept kicking the can down the road.
It depends how public you feel like being. On one hand, work do kinda need to know something is in the offing, because it is hard for them to plan, but I asked my HR to keep it low key and to not tell everyone. I told my colleagues once we were given a date for matching panel. It felt too risky for me, too difficult to have people asking me all the time how it was going and whether we had been matched, because it felt like a little stab every time I had to explain how long it took and then try to either defend the rigour of the system or agree it was rubbish.
Once we got wind in July/ august that we might not be matched until autumn, we booked a cheap and cheerful last minute thing to Sicily in the October, on the premise that we would pay good money to get them home a month or two earlier so would just cancel the holiday, but if not we would still have gone and had a nice last hurrah.
Best decision we made.
The warm late summer vibes and memories of red wine and pasta sustained me through what can only be described as a very long winter of the soul. It was also our chance to be completely indulgent and do absolutely nothing, as well as taking our minds off how frustrated we were that nothing was happening. It was the last time we were able to eat out properly at a restaurant and take our time over food and lounge around for ages because apparently traumatised 2 and 3 year olds don't appreciate how long it takes to quietly appreciate a grilled seabass in herby butter and a chilled glass of white wine overlooking a nice sea view, and instead insist on what can only be described as driveby eating only chicken nuggets and chips in places that don't care whether half the food ends up on the floor and plays background music loud enough to drown out the wails of their screams that it's not the right shape of battered poultry product.
We kept in touch with our social worker during the holiday, we just used the hotel WiFi for an online meeting or two and kept an eye on our emails. We also made sure we were able to get to an airport and had stuff either done or ready to be ordered should we need to get back because plans suddenly changed.
I would say keep living your life as much as possible, because when you do get placed its all consuming. For example if you have an annual friends reunion, and you don't go this year just in case, you might not get to go the next year either, depending on your child and the placement etc I didn't really realise that as the primary carer, it would be so hard to spend any time at all away from the children, and how entirely consumed by meetings, reviews, doctors appointments etc the first 6 months or so would be. Having nice recent memories of normal things like holidays and meetings with friends etc was really helpful.
Do keep chasing social workers, it's very easy to let a few weeks pass here and there in the name of not pushing your luck, but they are busy people and sometimes forget stuff. If you have a potential match, agree a time period to chase it up with your SW and then put a date in your diary. We usually prompted her to chase up with any potential matches every 2 weeks to either close down and get rejected (heart breaking but allowed us closure) or to get in touch with the child's social worker to see what else needed to happen to get the ball rolling. However she had said that was helpful for us to do, and it was easier for us to be proactive and keep track of dates and where we were at because she had several families she was working with and we only had us to look out for. It might be worth checking in and speaking with your SW about what they think is a reasonable amount to stay in touch.
I would say that during matching we averaged a couple of emails a week back and forth suggesting matches based on which profiles we had looked at, possibly reasons for rejection and how to strengthen our "offer" (we did extra hair care courses, researched provision in our local area for specific send based on the types of profule we were seeing etc) and then had an online meeting every month or two to check in on the process and how we were doing. It then ramped up a bit when we got linked with the boys as we were getting updates about how they were doing, what was happening with them and what we could to to prepare for them, but it was mainly online untill the point where the boys social worker needed to see our house in person.
I hope that helps give an idea- obviously everyone is different!