Hi there,
Did mine at PAT a while ago. Would recommend doing it full time, see whether you could get some unpaid leave if necessary. It will be the most demanding training so far and is tiring.
When I was training we where stopped due to bad weather quite often and it would cost me at least an hour on the next season to get up and running again as the learning curve is very steep.. PAT has a sim now so bad weather should not be a problem but the breaks your are planning do not help the training process for your selves..
Good luck!