There is a specific kind of quiet that only arrives when you are not on call. I had it this weekend for the first time in a while, and I'd half forgotten what it felt like.
It isn't that the pager goes off constantly when you're carrying it. Most rotations are quiet most of the time. It's the low background hum of readiness, the part of your brain that keeps half an ear on your phone, that won't let you have the third pint or start the long walk or get properly into a book because some small clerk in your head is filing the question "what if it goes now". You don't notice the hum until it stops.
This weekend it stopped. I made a proper coffee, I read most of a book in the garden, and at no point did I rehearse the runbook for the thing I privately suspect will break next. I went somewhere with no signal and felt nothing but mild relief.
I'm back on the rota next week and that's fine, it's the job and I'd rather share the load than dump it on someone else. But it was a good reminder that "uneventful" is not the same as "off", and that the rest you actually need is the kind where you're allowed to stop listening.