I struggled with this for half an hour myself, which is how I found this forum. It turns out that you don't need to get the tube off of the tabs at all; they come off as a unit with the tube!
Those tabs are part of the vacuum tube, too. You don't have to get them to release. Just twist the whole thing off of the blower body (may take a little jiggling) and you'll be all set. (I had the exact problem yesterday and tried for half an hour to get the tube off the tabs).