Gmail puzzle: auto-reply

Gmail doesn't have a vacation message function.
I'll be on-and-offline in the coming days so I wanted to give an auto-reply to people who send me e-mails.

So what I did is ...
1) used the forwarding function of Gmail
2) forward Gmail messages to my "myrealbox.com" account that has an auto-reply function.
3) the myrealbox.com account I used so happens to be my mobile e-mail box.

But that didn't work. First is because the auto-reply ends up in MY Gmail box and not in the e-mail sender's inbox.

Second is that I end up receiving my Gmail messages in my mobile phone (because my phone is configured to access my myrealbox.com account). I want to be on vacation but this setup inadvertently allows me to read my e-mails on the go. We don't like that .... :-( .

So, do any of my readers have any solutions for this Gmail puzzle?

How can Gmail users configure an auto-reply in our Gmail account?

Ka Edong
the subscriber that cannot be rich

typed on Brosia
at MTS