help needed for vacation(1)

Hi, 

I want to send a vacation notice to everybody who sends an e-mail to me. In 
the mean time, I want to have this e-mail delivered in my box. I found that 
vacation is on this purpose. Be informed that I am not very familiar with 
.forward files. 

My .forward file contains below line:
\ek, "|/usr/bin/vacation ek" 

I get e-mails in my box. Problem is that my system do not send 
~/.vacation.msg as a reply. If I remove "\ek, " part in the .forward file. 
It just reply to mail, and I loose the e-mail sent to me. 

I tried several combinations like:
 ---
\ek
"|/usr/bin/vacation ek"
 ---
"|/usr/bin/vacation ek"
\ek
 --- 

None solved the problem. System either reply or deliver incoming mail to my 
box. Any help is appreciated. 

 --
Ertan Kucukoglu
ertank_at_softhome.net