If you can make it, it would be a way for you and your husband to be able to picture him in context when he is away at school. Of my four kids I went to one of these mid-summer orientations with my spouse and my kid, who stayed in the dorm. (We stayed in a hotel, as did the other parents.) There were plenty of other parents there and they had a separate set of orientation events for us. We also ducked out and explored the city a bit. It was like a little vacation. (We also drove, but it was closer to 7 hours.) For my other kids, we didn’t bother to go to summer orientations, when they were offered, and it didn’t seem to matter.