How to discern when like dir names exist in 2 places

[Harry Putnam]

with these rsync  rsync [...] /var/ /dir/
                  rsync [...] /etc/ /dir2/
                  
And exclude file: excl

  /apache2/*

That will exclude both /var/apache2/*
and                    /etc/apache2/*

How can I tell rsync I want /var/apache2 excluded, but not /etc/apache2?
I mean short of using separate excl files for each run
Using something like the start of an absolute name:
  `/etc/apache2/*'

Allows both /etc/apache2
and         /var/apache2  to be collected