This post sums me up too - trained in a very mathematical field, but without a maths background - walked away from it all for a year to rethink things and spend time with my kids - spent ages trying to learn new tech and boost my skills - just got a job again, doing pretty much what I was doing before. And in a month, I've learnt more through my project work as collaborations with team members than I did when I was self-learning during my year off.

Now I'm combining the two - learning some new stuff during my commute, putting it into practice at work - and at the same time, making sure that my evenings and weekends are free to spend with my family. Right now I couldn't be happier - I feel that I'm finally beginning to develop as a software engineer, but I can maintain a nice work-life balance too.

Totally second the other posts here - learning is good but you really need to be working on building something, because that allows you to really consolidate when you've learnt. It's when you spot the perfect application for some theory you learnt in your project work, and you can execute that application, that you really start getting somewhere. IMHO. :)